


Remembrance

by inK_AddicTion



Category: Guardians of Childhood - William Joyce, Rise of the Guardians (2012)
Genre: Blood and Guts, Catatonia, Character Death, Choking, Dream Manipulation, Empaths, F/F, F/M, Ghosts, Heart Attacks, M/M, Manifesting insects inside living creatures, Manipulation, Murder, Platonic Relationships, Poison, Possession, Spiritwalking, Suicidal Thoughts, Swearing, Torture, blood tasting, children are legit demons its true, dead bodies, interesting soul mechanics, kind of, language barriers, pretty gruesome descriptions, pseudo Australian animals
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-18
Updated: 2015-09-27
Packaged: 2018-03-13 15:33:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 40
Words: 113,642
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3386951
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inK_AddicTion/pseuds/inK_AddicTion
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The body of Pitch Black did not remember it had once been a man. But when the shadows that govern it rip the mind and body apart, killing the body and trapping themselves, the spirit of a ghost from the past awakens. And he has scores to settle.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Shadows

The body of Pitch Black did not remember that it had once been a man.

It had existed, mildly hurting, for many years in a state of numb subservience to the raging shadows it contained. At first, the body had been a war-torn horrorscape of shadows wrestling for control; they all wanted to be in charge at once. Eventually, however, once they realised that all fighting each other was doing nothing to help them gain what they really wanted-  _fear-_ as no one feared a creature that spent it's days flopping the body around ungracefully, the shadows decided to join together as a conglomerate. It was much easier when they were all agreeing on one thing.

It hadn't taken the shadows long to realise that using the existing mind of the body, which had already gone through the tedious process of learning to walk and talk, to pilot it under their direction was favourable to attempting to understand the physiology of the bizarre creature they found themselves entrapped in.

Unfortunately it had been a while longer before the body stopped resisting and acting out at odd moments- inspiring instant and brutal punishments. After a while, the body's mind, cracking under the strain of holding the shadows, gave way and submitted fully to the shadows' control.

The shadows then learned to puppet the servile body masterfully, and how to blend it together with their powers to achieve instantaneous travel. Reassembling the body afterwards was difficult, and sometimes the shadows forgot to bring important things with them, only alerted once the body started throwing panic at them. Sheepishly, the shadows would return to retrieve that part of squishiness they thought was unnecessary- in their defense, there was an awful lot of strange squishy things inside the body that cramped them dreadfully. It was not  _easy_ to fit ten thousand shadows inside one human body.

It was also impossible to leave.

Perhaps it was some hold-over of the body's resistance, but the shadows simply could not extend themselves more than a few feet from the body, even then, unable to reach out apart from with their powers. It was very frustrating.

As time passed, so the shadows grew better at moving as one unit, and began to think of themselves and the puppet as one being. They took a singular name, "Pitch Black", and began referring to themselves in first person. The other spirits began to take them more seriously, and they were pleased at the increased amounts of fear they could gain.

But as the spirits feared them as a threat, they started fighting back- one group in particular that called themselves the Guardians. The Pitch Black did not like this. It found it difficult to fight the Guardians, who were all very brave, and ingeniously clever. Not to mention they kept company with a small girl that made the Pitch Black feel very odd indeed, and sometimes made it's body do things the Pitch Black had not ordered it to do.

So Pitch Black decided to kill the Guardians, and make itself the undisputed king of the spirit world. This was much easier said than done, as with every scheme Pitch Black came up with- and there were many relentless, devious plans which  _nearly_ worked- the Guardians escaped by the skin of their teeth and every time, saved the day. It was infuriating, and what was worse, they wanted Pitch Black to stop spreading fear. It did not want to stop spreading fear. Fear was the reason it existed.

Pitch Black realised that it needed to be better to destroy the Guardians. So it instigated the Dark Ages, and grew powerful, and happy. Everything was afraid of it, and there was no child that walked right through it, which, as every spirit agreed, was the most horrific sensation a creature could experience. It believed it was King.

But then, the Moon raised up his Guardians once more and charged them with protecting the children, and Pitch Black was once more defeated and cast aside as the Guardians ushered in a kinder age. It's shadows had weakened, and as belief continued to decline, so did Pitch Black, relying more and more on the instinctual knowledge of the defeated body for survival.

The evolution of a complex personality and deeper thought process came at a cost, and Pitch Black could no longer remember its creation and subsequent victories. Pitch Black decided he was male, and that he preferred to fight with scythes and liked horses. He also spent time observing the families of children, and he raised the question of why he didn't have a companion.

Pitch Black began to feel lonely. He discovered emotions like happiness, anger, confusion and curiosity. He understood that he could feel more than a desire for fear. He gained a capacity for cunning and planning that he had not had before, as well as a malicious but powerful thirst for what he perceived as justice. He evaluated the others around him and decided that he did not have what they did, therefore, his life was lacking, and that he needed to repair it. He began to rationalise his thinking, and concocted a plan to kill the Guardians by raising an army of Nightmares, corrupted dreamsand and therefore immune to his own weaknesses, and constrict the Guardians' belief supply until they faded away.

The plan worked.

The shadows grew stronger, fed by belief in Pitch Black, and began tearing for more control. Pitch Black's mind began to fragment; the shadows which had been nothing more than a dull instinct enmeshed with the body's natural intelligence thirsted for their old domination. They began to slowly pull him apart.

By the time Pitch Black had been hit in the face with a snowball by Jack Frost, he was already greatly divided in his own mind. The shadows realised they could hijack the bodies of Pitch's creations and use them in a semi-autonomous manner. Control was slipping, and Pitch Black had to let the Sandman go or risk destroying the personality and mind he had crafted for himself out of the ashes.

Immediately, the Sandman reformed from the nightmare sand he had been trapped in, and proceeded to defeat Pitch once and for all, and then eradicate the Boogeyman's belief.

Once again, Pitch Black had failed, this time through the weakness of the personality. The shadows turned against the body they thought they had subjugated, unaware of his growing independence. Pitch Black's mind fractured again into the unwilling body and the hungry shadows.

They attacked him, beat him down, but just as before, the body of Pitch Black was remarkably resilient to them, even after all these years as their puppet. They wanted his  _fear._

The shadows were furious, and merciless in their torment. They ripped and tore at the mind's weaknesses, driving the body through endless horrific nightmares, relishing his screams. In their savagery, they did not realise they were pulling Pitch Black apart until it was too late.

The mind, subjugated for thousands of years, worn away and pushed aside, finally snapped it's connections to the body. Suddenly, the body went limp, and was unable to listen to the shadows. The heart stopped, the lungs stopped breathing, muscles screamed for oxygen.

The shadows, enraged by this new trick, assumed the body required the sustenance they did. It was out of energy, and what provided energy other than fear? The shadows had never bothered with things like food, the body had survived off their energy for the last thousands of years, why would it start needing food now? It needed to be replenished- so they took it to the nearest shadow, in the closet of Jamie Bennett, poisoned his dreams, and waited for it's lungs to re-inflate and the limbs to start listening to their commands again.

Suddenly, it struck them. They had left something behind, something very important. Frantic, the shadows reached for the missing part- but it was no physical organ misplaced, it was the broken mind, finally snapped beyond imagining, the mind that told the body to breathe and move and speak...The shadows were confused. The seat of the mind, the pinkish flesh in the skull, was still there, but the activity levels were dead and flat.

The body had died.

The shadows howled. They tore through their prison, trying in vain to manipulate dead flesh, bully a mind that was no longer there. The body was completely unresponsive, like stone, but still, they could feel the cold flesh like a prison, trapping them inside.

In his bed, Jamie Bennett woke up with a terrified gasp and the certainty that there was something in his closet. His wide brown eyes scanned the darkness, which thrashed menacingly the ways no shadows ever did. With a cold sinking ball of dread, Jamie Bennett knew the Boogeyman had come for him.

His hands shaking, he crept out of bed and hesitated in front of the closet door. The shadows seemed to urge him on with mocking hisses and rasps.

 _I'm not afraid of you!_ Jamie thought fiercely. He'd open the door, and there would be nothing there. Pitch Black didn't scare him, and he'd prove it!

Jamie yanked open the closet door. The body of Pitch Black lurched out, it's support taken away, all blank-staring eyes and gaping mouth, with the unmistakeable pallor and gauntness of the dead.

Jamie screamed.

* * *

The spirit left alone in the dark opened it's ghostly eyes.


	2. Awakening

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm assuming Jamie's American. Correct me if I start using the wrong phraseology, I am trying.

The Moon had risen over a small forest near Burgess, but tonight his friendly face did not smile. Instead he sent down searching moonbeams, which touched lightly over the yawning mouth in the earth lightly before retreating, too afraid to proceed.

There was something shining in the dark, something that didn't belong there, but had made itself home there anyway. A curious moonbeam, more intrepid than it's fellows, stretched cautiously into the sloping blackness of the hole, touching over the shattered splinters of an old bedframe discarded like old toys at the bottom. Hesitant, it paused there, awaiting retribution for it's daring.

None came, and the shadows stayed just that, shadows.

The moonbeam slipped carefully down the dark tunnel, it's silvery glow lighting up nothing but cold gravelly floors and unfriendly rock walls. It followed a lead only it could sense, to the thing-which-did-not-belong.

A gust of air curled along the moonbeam's light, and the tunnel slowly widened, until it opened up into a massive cavern, decorated with hanging lead cages, the walls shrouded in shadow and punctuated by infrequent shafts of weak light, illuminating stone worn cracked and grey by the passing of countless ages. Here there hung a vast, echoing chill like the prickles of claws.

The moonbeam faltered. It felt distinctly unwelcome here in the darkness, cut off from Tsar Lunar and the rest of the moonbeams. But it had a job to do. It had to find the thing-which-did-not-belong.

It ventured bravely on over the wide, spanning bridges. The cracks in the stone were splashed with dark, tar-like liquid that made the moonbeam's light shudder away. It knew what this was. This was the stuff of Fearlings- the blood of the Nightmare King himself.

The moonbeam did not want to meet whatever monster was so horrific it could wound the Evil One all moonbeams were taught to fear. It had better finish it's job quickly.

There was a faint shine in the darkness, a glow which did not come from the weak light enhancing the power of the shadow. The moonbeam swiftly approached it, then slowed, surprised, and sorrowed.

It was a spirit, pale and ethereal, thrown in a broken heap like a discarded puppet at the foot of one of the bridges. There was no discernible wounds on him, but the moonbeam could see the silvery criss-crosses of countless healed scars all over his thin, exposed body. He was faintly translucent, whiter than snow and glowing with a cold radiance, like the moonbeam. His hair was the grey of beaten silver, and his half-opened eyes were quiet and terribly, terribly sad, as if he had witnessed some great tragedy beyond the understanding of a simple moonbeam. Tears welled up and ran constantly from his mournful eyes.

The moonbeam illuminated the spirit's head shyly, inexplicably upset with his silent despair. The spirit turned his head slightly as if he sensed the touch, and guided by a reasoning the moonbeam could not explain, it expanded, covering the spirit's body with a soft radiance before solidifying and becoming embossed silvery armour, glowing all over, in the style of a General from long past, when the light was endless on golden, summery days, and swirling into a long cape that fell in a gilded waterfall from the spirit's shoulders.

The spirit raised his ghostly hands and looked at them with the numb curiosity of the dead. They were long-fingered, garbed in intricately patterned gauntlets that covered only the backs of his fingers and hands, leaving his palms and fingers to shine faintly, uncovered. He traced the network of scars idly. He felt solid and warm beneath his own fingertips, like dead, hewn marble warmed by the presence of a fire.

He had no name, no maker, and no purpose.

He was possessed by a restlessness to see the light, to experience the gentle embrace of the moonbeams. The spirit had not seen the light in a long time, languishing, alone and forgotten in the dark.

He drifted upwards with errant purpose, appearing not to care as he went straight through solid objects. The lead cages had no power to trap him now, nor did he have any fear of being entombed by the stone. The breeze did not touch him.

What was dead could not die, and what wasn't there could not be felt.

The restless ghost at last came to a crack in the roof of the earth, through which lanced brave pillars of moonlight, a beckoning beacon to the spirit. The spirit moved forward cautiously now, held back by a flesh memory of burning light and stinging wounds.

But there was no malice in this moonlight, and when the spirit floated into it's light, he felt a coolness embrace his ghostly body as he was drawn out of the hole, out of the darkness, the Stygian underworld he had once claimed to rule, gaze transfixed by the gentle moon, as if he were ascending. The moon garbed him in silver light, lifted him gently until he was above the treetops.

 _Your name is Kozmotis Pitchiner,_ the Moon whispered, and there was a chime in his head that recognised the name even as it rejected it.

The one named Kozmotis Pitchiner tilted his head, the flow of his tears never stopping. He would weep forever. He stared at the round orb of the moon with the patience of the dead, utterly motionless in the air, remaining perhaps for hours until the moon sank tiredly behind the edge of the world, and his light left the spectral soldier.

Only then did he move, turning to walk along the treetops, his boots leaving the leaves utterly undisturbed as he passed. The cloak billowed silently out behind him as he walked.

He was not Kozmotis Pitchiner.

* * *

Jamie, badly shaken by what his parents had thought was nothing more than a particularly vivid nightmare, had moved into Sophie's room for the night, and come the morning, had refused to enter his own room again. He had not slept, tormented by images of Pitch's dead, glassy eyes and blank, slack expression, the hideous shadows Jamie had seen bulging underneath his skin.

He'd tried to convince himself it really was nothing more than a nightmare, but he couldn't believe it, and he didn't dare to check if the... _body_ was still slumped out of the closet like a particularly ugly piece of clothing, cast-aside. He shuddered at the memory, feeling nauseous.

He'd ask Jack. Jack would know if there was anything- up with Pitch, wouldn't he? Jack was a Guardian, he'd be able to deal with Pitch if it was just a nightmare. But if it wasn't...

 _What if we killed him?_ A sly voice whispered in horror at the back of his mind, and Jamie swallowed.

 _Shut up,_ he told the voice fiercely, and then,  _Jack will know. It'll be alright when Jack gets here._

He cast a desperate look out the window at the fresh layer of snowfall. It meant Jack was at least in the area, even if he hadn't dropped in on the Bennetts yet. He would. Jamie knew he would.

"What's the date?" Mrs Bennett asked as she wandered in the kitchen, a pile of letters in her hand. Mr Bennett, a tall, thin man in a ironed shirt and rumpled trousers, with equally thin brown hair brushed carefully over his head to hide his growing bald spot, sat at the table with a cup of strong brown coffee, slice of toast and the newspaper, flipped back to the front page and answered promptly, "19th September, Saturday." At his feet, Abby wagged her tail hopefully, begging for a crust of toast.

"This one's from the bank, John," Mrs Bennett said, passing the letter she was scanning to her husband.

 _September._ Jamie counted up the months in his head. It had been four, nearly five months since the adventure of Easter, four months since Jamie had met Jack and become his first believer, a title of which he was very proud.

Four months in which the Boogeyman had been safely sealed away in his lair, not causing trouble. Four months was a long time. Long enough- maybe, for Pitch Black to die?

 _Stop thinking about it,_ Jamie ordered himself.

"How're you feeling, dear?" Mrs Bennett asked Jamie, touching her hand to his forehead. Jamie leaned away quickly, muttering a swift "Fine", and returning to staring pensively out of the window, wishing Jack would hurry up. Mrs Bennett pursed her lips. "You look a bit pale," she said, "Perhaps you oughtn't go out in the snow today?" she suggested. "We could have your friends over instead."

Sophie stuck her tongue out at the thought of Jamie's friends, showing off a mouthful of half-chewed Coco-Pops. "Sophie," Mr Bennett reprimanded gently, still focused on his newspaper. He turned a page, tutted at the rising house prices on the estates section. Mr Bennett was the sort of man who read a newspaper from front page to back, even the crosswords, and religiously read the paper every morning since as long as Jamie could remember.

"I'm fine, Mom," Jamie insisted quickly. There was no  _way_ he was staying inside if there was a possibility Jack would be out! "I just had a nightmare."

_Did you?_

Mrs Bennett sighed at him fondly. "Have you at least had breakfast?"

"No," Jamie admitted. He hadn't wanted to eat this morning, just the thought made him feel nauseous. "I'm not hungry, I'll grab something later."

"You need to eat, Jamie," Mrs Bennett said, "Breakfast is the most important meal of the day."

Jamie rolled his eyes when his mother turned away. Pippa said she never ate breakfast and she hadn't keeled over and died, like Mrs Bennett implied Jamie would if he ever missed a morning meal. "I'll eat later," he promised, "I will. I'll come back and have a big lunch."

Suddenly, he caught sight of a flash of blue outside, and his heart leapt in his chest. "Can I go outside now?" He asked eagerly, already jumping to his feet.  _Jack was here!_

Mrs Bennett opened her mouth to scold Jamie for missing breakfast again, but her son was already halfway out of the door, pausing to grab his hat and gloves as he did so before he tore out into the fresh snow.

She shook her head. "Boys."

"Kids," corrected Mr Bennett, groaning as his phone chimed with another work email. "They have all the energy without the jobs."

Jack caught sight of Jamie running towards him and did a back flip mid-air, laughing with the carefree ebullience that was Jack's centre and job. The frost boy hefted a snowball in his hand, his grin turning mischievous as he aimed at Jamie.

Jamie's hat was slipping over his eyes, and he was panting as he ran as fast as he could towards the Guardian. He skidded to a stop in a shower of snow, just in time to get nailed in the face by one of Jack's slushy snowballs.

" _Jack!"_ He laughed, and instantly it was as if all of his worries fell away. Jamie grinned up at Jack, who was balancing on his staff and smiling just as widely down at his first believer.

"What's up, kiddo?" the immortal teen greeted, hopping off his staff and swinging it wide, covering the ground with a fresh layer of powdery snow perfect for packing into snowballs. Jamie gaped at the magic, his eyes lighting up.

"That's so amazing!"

Jack tugged his hand through his hair, embarrassed, but the wide, pleased grin on his face betrayed how happy he was to be acknowledged and admired.

_They just want to be seen..._

It was as if someone had punctured a great balloon in Jamie's chest and his shoulders slumped. Jack caught sight of his believer's glum expression and formed another snowball, bringing it to his lips as if to blow his magic into it and lighten Jamie's heart. He didn't like it when Jamie was upset- he was the Guardian of Fun! Not of misery.

"Jack, I can't play today," Jamie said quietly, and Jack stopped, stunned.  _Never,_ in any of the snowdays he'd brought Burgess since that Easter, (and there had been lots, Jack couldn't help but feel biased towards the town) had Jamie not wanted to play.

"What's wrong, Jamie?" Jack asked, confused and a little hurt. What was making Jamie act like this? His thoughts whirled with suspicion. He'd only seen kids this depressed when Pitch had plagued them with ceaseless nightmares and fear... Was it Pitch? If he had been targeting Jamie...Jack's grip on his staff tightened, remembering the awful feeling of it snapping in two. He'd pay for it.

Jamie flushed a little, feeling awkward. It sounded so childish now Jack was actually in front of him. He'd only had a little nightmare, and Jack was a Guardian, he was too important to bother with trivial things like a bad dream. He didn't want to look like a baby in front of Jack, the incredibly awesome frost spirit who was not only older but cooler in literally every way (pun intended) than Jamie.

"S'nothing," he muttered, and tried to push it out of his mind, but all he could think of was those dead, flat eyes, the bleak hopelessness in Pitch's empty stare, the stillness of him, unnaturally still, the ragdoll floppiness of his frame. He shuddered and felt a twist of nausea in his stomach.

"Has Pitch been bothering you?" Jack questioned, dropping to a crouch in order to stare into Jamie's eyes. His blue eyes were uncharacteristically fierce.

"I...had a nightmare," Jamie admitted awkwardly, feeling a hot blush of embarrassment staining his cheeks. "It was only a little one- and a weird nightmare, now I think of it...I don't think it was something Pitch would send me?"

Jack looked confused. "Well, what was it about?"

Jamie shifted, uncomfortable. He worried at his lip and stared at Jack's bare feet in the snow. His skin looked faintly purple around his toes, as if he'd had frostbite in the past. That was impossible, wasn't it? He was practically winter personified, Jack didn't even feel the cold.

"Come on, Jamie, you can tell me." Jack said comfortingly, putting his hand on Jamie's shoulder and nudging Jamie's face to look at him.

With a shuddering breath, Jamie whispered, "I saw...a body."

"A body?" Jack repeated.

"It was Pitch. I think it was. He fell out of my closet, but he didn't seem..." Jamie trailed off, unable to voice his suspicion in front of Jack's intense blue stare. "He looked...bad."

"He  _fell_ out of your closet?" Jack glanced over to the Bennett house. Jamie followed his line of sight and knew they were thinking the same thing. What would cause Pitch Black to fall, apparently weakened to such a degree he couldn't even keep his balance, out of one of his shadowed hideaways?

"He wasn't moving," Jamie whispered in a small voice.

Jack appeared to understand his dread, and his own face sobered. He put on a reassuring smile and squeezed Jamie's shoulder. "Come on, I'll show you there's nothing to be scared of. Pitch is just bad dreams- he can't hurt you if you're not afraid of him. And you're not afraid, you protected all of us Guardians when he attacked us last Easter! We trounced him, remember?"

The memory made Jamie smile a little, which was apparently Jack's intention, because the elder teen immediately returned his smile. Jack's cheer was infectious.

"Come on!" Jack said brightly, shooting off on a gust of wind, "Let's see this closet."

Jamie was a far sight more hesitant, but followed Jack anyway. Jack wouldn't lead him wrong, Jamie trusted him.

They went through Jamie's window, Jack's hand grabbing onto the back of Jamie's coat just like he had when they'd flown together at Easter. The cold wind had billowed playfully around them and consented to lift Jamie, much to his delight, and the short ride was over far too quickly. It was a flushed and breathless Jamie that fiddled with the catches on the window, his gloves and the chill making his fingers clumsy, not the imminent fear.

It was dark inside Jamie's room, darker than it had any right to be. Shadow coiled lazily along the walls, seeping from a point of absolute blackness somewhere in the vicinity of Jamie's closet. The light that entered through the window was weak and dim where it had been strong, healthy light only moments before. There was an ominous prickling cold which made shivers run down Jamie's spine. The air smelled close and musty, like old mothballs.

"Stay back," Jack warned, holding up his staff cautiously as he balanced on the window sill. The staff began to glow with an icy blue light that chased the shadows away.

"Pitch!" Jack called, glaring into the darkness, "I know you're there. Come out and face me, you coward!"

There was no response, but the shadows grasped hungrily for the staff's light, flickering and wavering in ways that no shadow behaved.

Jack swiped at them with his staff, and they danced back mockingly, returning to caress lightly against the winter spirit's bare feet, or drag clawed hands through his white hair. A dark fury began to bubble in Jack's heart. He was tired of Pitch's games!

He checked on Jamie, standing obediently in the window's light and eyeing the rippling shadows in something approaching terror. He saw Jack looking and shot him a nervous smile.  _The closet,_ he mouthed. He looked pale and shaky.

Jack nodded back and put on his signature grin, but it fell away when he looked at the focal point of the hissing darkness surrounding him. The further towards the closet he went, the thicker the shadows grew, until it was like treading through tarry molasses, tar that licked and stroked at Jack's legs, crept into the shadows under his clothes.

A funny thought struck Jack despite the situation and he snickered. There were shadows under everyone's clothes. Could Pitch travel through them? He had a hilarious mental image of Pitch Black diving under North's big red coat. Maybe that was why two of the Guardians walked around barely clothed and the other glowed.

The shadows withdrew, as if offended by Jack's humour. Jack smirked. Fun defeated Fear every time.

As they did so, Jack managed to make out what appeared to be a shape slumped out of the open doors of Jamie's closet, twisted and utterly still. There was an odd smell, like brimstone and ash. He held his staff light closer.

Jack gagged in horror, almost dropping his staff as his stomach lurched.

It was a body. Pitch's body. And it was very obviously dead.

The body's torso and head had fallen sideways out of the closet, clearly Pitch had been sat with his knees to his chest, until the door he was leaning against opened. He was clothed in what Jack first took to be writhing currents of shadow, until he realised that Pitch was naked, and the shadows he could see were shoving against the grey skin from  _inside,_ causing grotesque lumps in the body's flesh. Pitch's hair was dark and matted with blood, and his eyes were wide open, staring and glassy, his face frozen in a permanent expression of terror.

He was  _dead._

Jack resisted the urge to throw up and prodded Pitch's shoulder with his staff. His face twisted in disgust as the shadows underneath Pitch's skin pressed hungrily towards it; Jack could see the perfect outline of a little hand, shadow-dark, against the Boogeyman's sternum.

_What killed you? Did your Nightmares really rip you apart? But you said, you can't kill fear..._

"Jack?" asked Jamie worriedly from the window, "Are you okay?" A beat. "Is...is Pitch okay?"

"He's...he's fine." Jack lied. How could he tell Jamie the Boogeyman's  _dead body_ was in his closet? "He's just...asleep."

There was a disbelieving silence. Then Jamie said, "He's unconscious?"

"Yes, that's what I meant." Jack said hurriedly. "He..." He looked at Pitch's face.  _Were you scared to death?_  "looks...very tired." A shadow swam sluggishly over Pitch's eye, and Jack shuddered. "In fact...I'm going to call the Guardians...and we'll take him to the Pole. To, uh, recover."

 _Not that there's much recovery you can do from being dead._ The dead body stared at him accusingly.  _Okay tasteless joke._

Jack heard Jamie sigh in relief. "I thought he was dead or something!" the boy joked nervously. "But he must've just been...really tired."

Jack winced. "Uhm. Yeah. Come on Jamie- I'll take you back outside, and then I'll call the Guardians."

_I need to tell them Pitch Black is dead._


	3. Duty

It was only once Jack had shooed Jamie out into the snow with promises Pitch would be sorted out within the hour that he realised he had no way to call for help.

He stared down at the dead body in the closet and tried not to notice the shadows pulsating under Pitch's skin like bloated black maggots. There was no way he could leave it here and hope that Sophie or Jamie just didn't come in; it had been difficult enough convincing Jamie that Pitch was fine, just unconscious, and not actually  _dead._

 _Dead._ It didn't seem real. He'd been fine, three months ago, he had been well and breathing. He had gloated cruelly, a writhing shadow dancing at the corner of Jack's eye, the glint of a smile in the dark...the Boogeyman had existed for centuries, if North's tales were to be believed, a faceless darkness looming just out of sight, feeding off fear. It wasn't possible that he could be defeated so easily. It couldn't be possible. Because if it was...if it was then that meant the Guardians' counter-attack had been far more effective than they could ever have hoped. If it was possible...if Pitch Black had died...then Jack Frost had a fifth in his death.

It wasn't possible. Pitch had said himself, " _You can't kill Fear."_

It was a trick, Jack knew it was. But...even if this was an illusion, and Pitch was only pretending to be dead (in which case his acting was far more incredible Jack had ever given him credit for) Jack couldn't leave him at Jamie's house. Pitch was malicious, he would attack Jamie and Sophie just to torment the Guardians. Jack really had no choice.

The North Pole was the most accessible, and probably the most fortified place to take Pitch, with all of North's yeti guards. There wasn't a snowball's chance in hell that Jack was going to take Pitch to the Tooth Palace, and he didn't even know if Sandy had a house- for all Jack knew, he slept on a star. Although Sandy seemed to do most of his sleeping during the Guardians' meetings. Maybe he was too busy to rest; spreading dreams had to be difficult and time-consuming; it was always night somewhere, after all.

Jack tapped Pitch's shoulder with his staff. The shadows under the grey skin mouthed hungrily at the source of the power, tiny teeth outlined starkly, and the frost that formed was immediately corrupted with teasing touches of shadow.

_"Look at what we can do..."_

Jack had to turn his face sharply to the side. The memory of Pitch then- lean and unhealthily gaunt, but very much alive, radiating expression and  _feeling,_ compared to the rigid blank thing covered in hissing shadows half-slumped out of the closet as if it were nothing more than a puppet with it's strings cut, exhausted after dancing for too long a gruelling tune- there was no comparison.

"How am I going to get him to the North Pole...?"

* * *

For the fourth time, Jack had to drop to the ground to throw up in a snowbank. Pitch's body fell into the snow next to him with a soft thump.

Jack tilted his head up to stare at the sky. If he looked down he would see the shadows, and Jack had had enough of them for thirteen lifetimes.

Pitch's body was rigid in the position it had been in inside the closet. Jack had thought bodies were pliant and floppy, but apparently Pitch lived- died? -to contradict him. Jack, gagging violently, had pulled it out and tried to ignore the feeling of clammy, cold flesh  _squishing_ under his fingers, looped his arm around Pitch's waist and shot off into the sky as fast as he could, in case an unlucky believer should happen to glance up and see Jack Frost carrying Pitch Black bridal-style off into the metaphorical sunset.

The connotations of that unlucky thought made Jack double over and heave again.

Even with the complete and utter  _vileness_ of holding a dead body to his chest for an hour or two could have been dealt with, if it wasn't for the  _shadows._

Pitch's body seeped with them, oil-slick and hungry, they licked over his arms and chest, rippling obscenely whenever he shuddered. They crept under his hoodie, into his hair, secreting a dark ooze that stank of sulphur and blood. Their very touch was enough to make prickles of panic skate nervously up Jack's spine- but at such a concentration, focusing all on one target, Jack was swamped in terror, reduced to diving down to the ground infrequently to allow his nausea to overtake him.

Jack breathed out raggedly, squared his shoulders, and glanced back at Pitch's motionless corpse. It was curled and hunched like a spider curled in on itself, and Jack felt a slight stirring of pity despite himself. No- it was just a trick, a mean, dirty trick that Pitch was probably laughing himself silly over watching Jack's reactions.

Jack sighed and stooped to pick up the body again. Eagerly, the shadows rose like steam from Pitch's grey skin to meet him halfway, mouthy little tendrils nipping with invisible teeth at the sensitive flesh of his neck.

 _I am going to have nightmares about this,_ Jack thought dully, and the shadows rippled in pleasure.  _That is probably exactly what they want._

"I am not paid enough for this," he muttered, wincing as he cradled Pitch's body to his chest and felt the corruption writhing under the skin.

He stuck his tongue out at the shadows, but one actually reached for it, and horrified, Jack quickly closed his mouth. He choked down bile as the shadows slithered sensuously against his bare skin, leaving trails of dark slime. Pitch's body was stone cold and felt alarmingly soft, as if all his bones had been eaten away, though it was as rigid as a statue. Jack's stomach twisted warningly.

He wasn't even halfway there.

* * *

Maggie wondered when daddy was coming home. Mummy had been very quiet on the day they were supposed to be picking daddy up from the airport, and she'd sat Maggie down and told her that daddy had gone very far away on a special adventure. Maggie had just asked when he was coming home, and Mummy had started crying.

Mummy said that Daddy was never coming back, but Maggie knew it wasn't true. Daddy promised her on his soul he'd be back.

The little girl rested her chin on her small hands. She was only seven, a delicate child with dark almond shaped eyes that promised to be striking when she was older, in a grass-stained pink dress. She had her favourite My Little Pony with her to keep her company, Rainbow Dash, for her bright colours.

"When is daddy coming home, Rainbow?" Maggie asked her pony, but it didn't answer.

A chill swept through the room, and Maggie's skin prickled uncomfortably with goosebumps. She shivered and pulled her knees tighter against her chest.

The ghost paused by the open window, drawn to the little girl's sorrow without quite knowing why. Something ached with a need to be filled in his colourless chest. He drifted closer to her until he loomed directly over her left shoulder, staring down at her with an unfathomable expression. As ever, silent silvery tears of misery streaked down his cheeks, uncovered by any helmet.

Slowly, he raised one chilled hand and placed it on her shoulder.

His transparent hand went straight through as if he weren't even there. The ghost stared numbly down at his hands, at the little girl, who had felt nothing more than a bone-numbing chill settle against her skin for the briefest moment, turning her entire shoulder numb. She was crying, ugly tears smudged on her cheeks, curling tightly into a ball and shivering from the cold of the grave.

"I want daddy," the girl whimpered, and something changed in the ghost's depthless eyes.

Curiously, he drifted in front of the girl and floated an inch or so off the floor in a cross-legged position, watching her intently. The pony stared at him accusingly, and the ghost returned it's stare levelly.

"I want daddy!" Maggie whined. A preternaturally cold breeze made her shiver as it drifted past her and eddied against her cheeks.

The spirit peered inquisitively at one of the ponies placed neatly in it's stable alongside it's fellows. It was dark purple, with a long glittery pink mane. The ghost's eyes shimmered with tears. He liked horses.

 _"I like horses too,"_ he told the little girl in a strange, musical language from ages long past. It didn't matter. She couldn't hear it. It was the first time he had tried speaking.

Maggie sniffed and wiped her eyes. She picked up her pony and cantered it morosely along the carpet, until her fingers encountered a chill so immense she drew her hand back with a startled yelp.

The ghost looked at the pony on the floor. It had fallen through his knee.

Maggie stared suspiciously at Rainbow Dash. She reached for the toy again, skirting the coldness until she realised it followed a curve. Maggie's heart leaped, and she closed her eyes tightly. She followed the bitter chill, tracing a torso in the air where Maggie could rest when she was tired, a shoulder perfect for a little girl's head to lean, the edges of a face.

_Daddy had come home._

Maggie opened her eyes and gasped.

A noble man made of silver light was sitting cross-legged in front of her, floating off the floor. He looked very solemn, and he was crying. Maggie could see right through him. He was wearing strange silvery armour.

"You're not Daddy," Maggie said with all the perfect reasonableness of a seven year old girl.

The ghost shook his head. No, he wasn't Daddy.

"Why are you sad? Are you sad because of Daddy?"

A pause. The ghost nodded. He was sad because she was sad.

"Don't be sad," Maggie said seriously. "That's my job."

The ghost tilted his head at her. Tears ran continuously down his cheeks, dripped off his sharp jaw. It wasn't his job to be sad for the little girl. What was his job?

"But- you'll remember Daddy, won't you?" Maggie said desperately. "You'll, you'll make sure he goes on his adventure, like mummy said?"

The ghost smiled through his tears and nodded. He lifted his hands and cupped them, silvery eyes catching Maggie's conspiratorially. He blew into his palms and there unfolded a single white poppy, a promise.

As Maggie gasped in wonder, a change came over the ghost. He still wept, but his cloak became touched with deep scarlet red, the colour of true poppies, at the hems, as if he had been walking through a trailing puddle of blood.

The ghost leaned forward and placed the white poppy at Maggie's feet. Then he rose to his feet, and pulled a large shining scythe out of the air beside him, which he held with practised ease. Maggie's eyes widened.

The ghost strode purposefully towards the window and straight through the wall. Where his cloak's shadow touched, there bloomed for a split second healthy red poppies that withered into dust the second his light had passed.

He had to find the little girl's daddy, and make sure he went on his adventure. He had promised.


	4. Lights Out!

The Guardians met before the great globe of belief, expressing varying degrees of annoyance and confusion as they did so. Sandy especially was uncharacteristically brusque, a frown on his round golden face as he demanded to know what North's problem was  _now_. Taken aback by the Sandman's hostility, North had only blinked. Sandy, realising how rude he had been, had signed a quick and somewhat short apology.

He had been feeling strange for a few days, hollow, as if something was missing, a gnawing worry that distracted him and plagued his infrequent rests with uneasy dreams. It had made his chase after night all the more tiring, and the Guardian of Dreams was exhausted. He still hadn't quite recovered from the shooting pains across his shoulder-blades that would occur at random moments, especially when Sandy was feeling at his weakest.

 _It's probably Pitch,_ Sandy thought quietly to himself. Perhaps he would go to the Boogeyman- surreptitiously unseal the entrance to his caverns, perhaps kill a few Nightmares while he was down there. It would have to be done on a moonless night. No one knew that he occasionally helped Pitch up to his feet- not even the Nightmare King himself- after a particularly crippling defeat. If he was honest with himself, he had left it a bit longer than he really should have. The warning pangs of sickness that always occurred whenever the balance was tipping between dreams and nightmares had started a while ago, but Sandy, still hurting and angry over his 'death', had ignored it.

So Pitch could shoot him in the back, swallow him in nightmare sand, smother his very essence until Sandy was nothing more than a consciousness pushed aside and ignored as his own power was used for Pitch's ends- yes, he had been fully aware of everything Pitch had done with his sand whilst 'dead', trapped in Pitch's cold heart, yet Sandy still had to go to him? Bitter and frustrated, he'd purposefully ignored the steadily weakening flux of his own powers; this time, Pitch could help  _himself._

But last night, the symptoms had abruptly spiked, to such an intensity that Sandy had almost fallen from the sky, his dreamsand too slow and sluggish to support him. The sleeplessness and imbalance was tormenting him, needling him and making him more prone to lashing out in anger. He felt surly and vicious, and was plagued by a constant dull ache in his back, right over that thin dark scar nestled between his shoulder-blades.

It was frightening. Sandy was a gentle, kind spirit by nature, he always had been. Pitch's influence was far more pervasive and insidious than just a few grains of dark sand.

The Sandman forced himself back to the present, shaking his head tiredly and rubbing his eyes apologetically. North laughed and clapped him on the back, never one to hold a grudge. The strength behind the blow almost sent Sandy pin-wheeling forwards, and he had to restrain a bitter scowl and the instinctive retort that leapt to his mind.

_What's wrong with me?_

"Where's Jack?" asked Tooth, sounding slightly disappointed that the newest Guardian wasn't in attendance with his beautiful teeth. Sandy almost rolled his eyes in exasperation.

North's face sobered, catching Sandy's attention. "Is being problem," said the old bandit heavily, "Jack has...found something he is thinking we must see."

"What does the showpony want now?" Bunny grumbled, warming his feet by the fire. He was still shaking clumps of snow from his fur.

"The Boogeyman," said North slowly. "Is dead."

The dreamsand twirling absently around Sandy's head went shock still. His mind ran up against a barrier, froze. No. There was no way- he had to have misheard- Pitch playing tricks- he was tired-

" _What?"_ demanded Bunny. He hopped over to North, an intent look on his face. "Are ya- are ya sure, mate? Pitch doesn't  _die."_

No, thought Sandy numbly, Bunny was right. Pitch didn't die. He couldn't die. They couldn't kill fear. The last remnants of Kozmotis Pitchiner-  _gone?_ Kozmotis had been dead for years, he scolded himself. Pitch was nothing more than a shadow. Hearing of his fate didn't affect him. Because it  _wasn't true._

"Jack has brought body to Pole," North told Bunny quietly. "Is definite. Body is dead."

A burst of almost frantic hope bloomed in Sandy's chest, sudden and bright enough for Bunny to glance his way curiously, taken aback. The  _body_ was dead- perhaps Pitch had somehow survived in a wraith form-? All he would have to do would be return to his body- reanimate it, surely.

"He brought the body here?" queried Tooth, her wings slowing even as her feathers fluttered in horror. "That's  _disgusting."_

Bunny snorted. "You said it, sheila." The Pooka was grinning, and his green eyes looked more alive than Sandy had seen them in centuries. "Dead? I want ta see it for meself," he told North firmly. He hesitated. "To be sure."

North nodded. There was not an ounce of joy or happiness in his eyes. "Is not nice sight," he warned, but gestured for them to follow him.

Sandy forced himself to walk after them, although moving felt like travelling through thick, heavy lead. His head was splitting with pain, and the world was beginning to blur around him slightly. There was a sharp digging pain throbbing through his entire back, and for the first time in his life, Sandy couldn't bring himself to float.

Where was Jack, anyway? Surely he hadn't stayed with the- with Pitch.

Sandy was not fast, and the other Guardians quickly outpaced him. They were heading for North's workroom, presumably where Jack had left Pitch. By the time he had gotten there, the other Guardians had already gone inside, and the room had fallen ominously silent.

Sucking in a fortifying, silent breath, Sandy walked inside.

His immediate thought was to turn and walk right back out again.

A lump had been laid, wrapped in a dark red blanket patterned with Christmas trees, on North's desk, the toys and tools momentarily cleared aside. It looked tiny, huddled like a child and frozen in a twisted position, spidery hands outstretched beneath the blanket as if pleading for mercy. A lock of dark salt and pepper hair peeked out from the shroud. All things were beautiful to Sandy, but even he could find no beauty in the contorted corpse.

It was the shadows, though, that made Sandy's heart drop into his stomach, which churned with bile as if a great clawed hand was stirring up some poison inside of him. They oozed from the body like dark fluid, dripping and squirming like fresh wet maggots, staining the pale blue ice to a dark flanged thing of ugly spires. The floor was so thick with the writhing darkness it looked like a seething carpet of snakes, with smoky teeth and claws reaching longingly towards the light.

This was what had been caged inside Pitch Black's skin for thousands of years.

The shadows stretched towards him as if they remembered him; perhaps they did, licking along his skin, tickling him with dark poison-bites that spread darkness everywhere it touched, holding him tightly in their oily grip no matter how hard he had thrashed- desperate for escape, the haunting, harrowing fear, the memory of an old friend etched into his mind-  _don't you remember usss, Ssssandy? We remember you, yesss we do, little ssstar._

The panic was beginning to thunder in his veins and the shadows were taking notice, perking up eagerly at the thought of their next meal. Sandy snapped to his senses and shot off the floor so fast he almost hit the ceiling, defensively kindling his sandwhips.

The Guardians noticed his abrupt action and turned to him with confusion. "It's alright, Sandy," said Tooth comfortingly, perhaps imagining he was worried about the Boogeyman himself, "He's dead, now. He can't hurt anyone ever again!" She sounded gleeful.

Bunny said nothing, but spat on the corpse with the utmost disdain, before turning on his heel and stalking out, the glow of vicious satisfaction on his furred face.

Sandy stared at them. Did they not see the twining shadows? Pitch was still dangerous, perhaps even more so now that- he swallowed. Now that the body and any remnant of it's previous owner were firmly dead. Sandy had hoped for so long that there was  _something_ buried under there...something that kept Pitch from turning back into the monster had been after he had first been possessed.

The sudden loss of that hope was far more devastating than any arrow in the back.

His heart clenched. No sign of his turmoil showed on his golden face.  _I should have been there,_ he thought, with a dumb horror,  _this is my fault. I should have helped him sooner, after the battle._ Was this good? A final end to Pitch Black, king of nightmares?

Sandy was only dimly aware of the other Guardians talking now, distracted by the waves of pain radiating from his spine. It was getting worse. His control on the sand dissolved, and his sandwhips disintegrated into hazy swirls of colourless sand.

"Sandy?" North asked, noticing the Sandman's silent distress, "Sandy-"

Their words ceased to make sense to the labouring Sandman. He was gasping for breath that would not come, shivering and shaking. There was a pounding in his head, in his blood, which had turned to ice in his veins. The hungry, creeping touch of the darkness slithered slickly over his mind, casting him in a thick, cloying blanket.

There could be no light without shadow, and dreams and nightmares had always been far more interconnected than either weaver had admitted, even to themselves.

Sandy's eyes rolled back into his head, and he collapsed, soundless as ever, a strange ashen grey turning his magical dreamsand into nothing more than lumps of grit. Far away in the ocean, the isle of the Sleepy Sands sank beneath the sea under the Moon's horrified eye.

What had he done?


	5. Sickening

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sandy is sick, and a new image appears in urban lore.

"How is he?" whispered Tooth, her hands clasped over her heart and her wide rose eyes shining with worry. She was standing on her own two feet for once, not even daring to mar the dead silence with the humming sound of her beating wings. Her fairies kept a respectful distance from the door, huddled together in their worry and confusion.

Bunny shook his head wearily, leaning against the door frame. The large rabbit looked exhausted; his fur was dull and his green eyes lacklustre. "Not well," he replied in a gruff murmur. "He's gettin' worse."

Tooth bit her lip anxiously, peering awkwardly over Bunny's shoulder into the darkened room where the bearish figure of North was visible, carefully lighting candles to illuminate an unmoving lump on the bed, piled high with blankets. There was a grave feeling in the air, of sickness and decay.

It had been three days since Sandy had collapsed beside the body of Pitch Black, and he had not recovered. The Sandman's strange ailment was unlike anything the Guardians had come across before; he tossed and turned in the night, as if he were trapped in a nightmare they could not wake him from, his brow shone with sweat, and when he did wake, it was with weak, feverish confusion, often fear, shrinking away from his friends and hiding his face. His skin had turned a colourless, ashen grey, like soot, and his magical dreamsand no more than piles of perfectly ordinary dull beach sand. North had ordered every last bit of it swept up and kept in a bag, in case Sandy needed it.

Tooth had had to leave periodically to take charge of her fairies, as did Bunny to his Warren. They had decided to keep Sandy at the North Pole, as with all of the yetis, there was no more readily staffed place available. Jack did not leave, ever, but remained worriedly by Sandy's side, providing endless supplies of icepacks and someone to hold the shaking little body as Sandy vomited his own sand into a bucket. Sandy often seemed to not recognise Jack at all, delirious in his fever, but Jack bore the quivering madness in the dreamweaver's dull gold eyes with gentle fortitude.

They had tried appealing to the Man in the Moon for help, but the moment they had brought Sandy to the moonlight, he had begun kicking and shrieking soundlessly in Jack's arms, pure terror in his eyes. Sandy had managed to pull himself free from Jack's grip and in a show of surprising strength, stumbled underneath the table and hid there, shaking and rocking, for hours until North found a way to coax him out. That had been yesterday.

"Can I...?"

Bunny jerked, as if he had forgotten that she was standing there. He moved out of the way with a tired wave, and went to slump down in a chair. A solicitous yeti brought him a cup of carrot juice that Bunny accepted gratefully.

Tooth approached the bed as silently as she could, doing her best not to interrupt Sandy's rest. She saw Jack passed out in a chair by the banked fire, his staff clutched loosely in his hand. There were dark circles under his eyes.

North passed her with a grave look in his normally bright and twinkling blue eyes. He paused her with a hand on the shoulder, opened his mouth as if he wanted to say something, perhaps prepare her for what she was about to see, but then he sighed and went to Bunny, who had fallen asleep in his chair. More than any words he could have spoken, it was the action that disturbed her the most.

Shaken, Tooth peered down at the bed.

The only thing visible was a lock of limp greyish hair on the pillow, but as Tooth lifted the blanket the Sandman's face was revealed. She gasped. He was frowning in his sleep, sweat dampening the tangled hair around his head into snarled ropes. He was white, and soundless pleas fell from his gnawed lips. He lay on his side, curled as if to protect himself, and occasionally jumped or twitched.

"Oh, Sandy," she whispered. She tenderly brushed a lock of starburst hair from his forehead, frowning at the heat practically radiating from his skin. Sandy kept a running temperature higher than the other Guardians, she knew, he was always the best to hug after a gruelling travel to the North Pole, but this was far above normal.

Tooth dipped a rag in the water pitcher beside the bed and dabbed at Sandy's brow, squeezed a few drops of water between his lips, feeling protective. Sandy had been around a lot longer than all of the other Guardians, -save Bunny, who had been a famous recluse- fighting Pitch alone. Tooth had often suspected there was something more to Sandy and Pitch's relationship- or had once been- than Sandy let on; he was a secretive being in his silence. It was highly indicative that there was something the Guardians didn't know, that Sandy had fallen sick moments after looking at Pitch's body (she shuddered at the memory), something important, that might have helped the Guardians to know how to help him.

"Why didn't you tell me your secret?" Tooth asked him quietly, studying Sandy's troubled face intently. "I can understand why you wouldn't tell North, or Bunny," she said, a little vulnerable. "But you could have told me. I could've helped you. I could be helping you." She sighed and stroked Sandy's hair. He shied away from her touch.

Tooth withdrew her hand and looked at the suffering Sandman. She opened her mouth to say more- perhaps reassure him and hope somehow, somewhere, Sandy could hear her- but she knew there was no point. Sandy was sick; Sandy was dying, and there was nothing the Guardians of Childhood could do to stop it.

* * *

The ghost walked in silence, his scythe balanced over one shoulder. His cloak flapped behind him in an unfelt wind, sweeping the field with freshly fallen poppies for a few instants before they were gone, crumbled into dust. He could feel the call of his duty like a tug behind his navel, and followed it without question. What else was there to do? The little girl with the ponies had told him that this was what he was made for. It was his duty.

And Kozmotis Pitchiner always did his duty, up till the very end.

He could feel another pull, as well, one that begged him to go north, to the distant polar ice caps. He ignored that one. He did not want to follow that pull; it gave him dark dreams and darker thoughts. The present one he was following was leading him down towards the site of a car accident in a lush, green country with rolling fields and large flocks of sheep.

He passed straight through a live sheep. It shivered and bleated in alarm as the chill of the grave washed over it, felt one instant, the next, was gone.

There, a hill, with a dangerously slick road. It was clear what had happened, but the ghost had never driven a car in his life, and was thus oblivious.

He drifted over the deep trench marks cut into the living soil and stopped by the car. The driver was dead; a man, around mid-forties. A young woman was sat in front of the car, eyes glassy and wide with shock. Her name was Madison. She had her phone in her hand, staring at it numbly, as if she couldn't remember the emergency number.

The ghost ignored her and went to the dead man. In one hand, he formed a garland of rose red poppies and placed them gently on the man's chest. He could touch the man, who was dead. The chill of his touch sank into the dead flesh, and sped up the process of turning it icy cold. He felt the man's spirit shake loose from his corpse, and the ghost stepped back, satisfied.

A gasp came from behind him, and the ghost turned in time to see the camera phone flash in front of him. He blinked slowly, uncomprehending. She was staring at him, shaking, her eyes wide and face pale.

The ghost walked away. Madison called the emergency services.

Several days later, the woman found the picture on her phone once again, a clear picture, with a blur of fog in the corner- perhaps it had been caused by her finger smudging the lens, or perhaps it really had been a ghost, a white general cloaked in red. She posted it on Facebook.

It only took one hour for her story to go viral.

In Burgess, Jamie Bennett's computer popped up with an email announcement.


	6. New Spirit!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jamie and Jack hatch a plan.

Jack sighed, staring glassily down at the bowl of soup in his hands. He barely noticed his power leaking into it until the bottom had already frozen solid. Jack cursed viciously, startling North, who turned with a raised eyebrow, ready to scold him for his language.

They were outside the sickroom; Jack was preparing a tray to take into Sandy in the hopes he might coax him to eat if he was in one of his infrequent waking moments. Perhaps this time Sandy could keep it down long enough for the healing herbs added by the yetis to get to work in his system. North was carrying out the sweat-soiled blankets and replacing them with new ones from the seemingly ever-full store of Christmas themed warm wraps, emerald green and ruby red, decorated with snowflake and starry night patterns, the least offensive to the eyes.

The weather outside was especially cold; usually, the sort of day Jack loved- blustery, bitterly freezing, and heavy clouds promising deep snowfall. Jack liked to ride the wind, always stronger on approaching storms, and allow it to batter him playfully like a ragdoll between powerful currents. He never got hurt, the wind knew to be careful of him, and Jack was strong. The windows had frosted over without his help, and the yetis were busy preparing for the blizzard that was sure to come that night, putting logs on great roaring fires and closing bespelled shutters against the chill.

But today Jack wasn't outside, playing in the snow. He was still inside the Pole, helping North care for Sandy. The closer it got to Christmas, the less time North had. He liked to start preparing unreasonably early. Jack hadn't been outside to perform his own scant 'duties' in a full week, and it was wearing on him. He felt restless and trapped, full of energy. He had to be exceptionally careful of icing things up in Sandy's room; too much cold distressed the sick dreamweaver.

"Sorry," Jack muttered sulkily, scuffing his toe against the table leg. He put the frozen solid bowl of soup back on the table, close to the fire, so that it could thaw.

North eyed him gently. "Jack." Alerted by the change in the Russian's voice, Jack glanced up to him, and then looked at him fully. North was watching him, his great arms folded across his chest and his blue eyes soft. "You are being restless, da? Cooped in?"

Jack blinked. How did North know...? He had done his best to conceal his feelings from North, knowing it was ungrateful and selfish of him to jet off on his own when Sandy so obviously needed his help. He felt partially responsible for Sandy's sickness, too, if he hadn't brought Pitch to the Pole...maybe Sandy wouldn't have gotten so sick. He'd tried explaining this to Tooth, but she'd only told him there was no way Pitch's dead body could make Sandy sick by mere proximity. Jack frowned, slightly, remembering the sad look in her pink eyes, as if she was remembering something.

"I..." he said, awkwardly, wishing he could somehow explain the dual need to escape and stay to prove his devotion.

North patted him on the shoulder, what passed as gently for the Russian but felt like a hammer blow to Jack, who stumbled. "Go out," he said, "Leave Pole. Spread snowdays. Power needs to be used, da? Will go away once you let it out."

"But Sandy..." Jack protested, somewhat half-heartedly. He did want to go.

North's eyes saddened further. "Sandy...Sandy will be fine, Jack." He didn't look as if he believed it.

"Will he?" Jack challenged, then flushed and lowered his eyes, feeling ashamed of admitting his doubt. "He's sick, North. He's...really sick. I don't think..." he broke off, unable to continue, unable to voice the terrible fear that brought to mind that dark arrow, Sandy swallowed up in a tide of darkness.

North sighed heavily. "I am not knowing, Jack, in truth." He rested his arms on the table and stared at the wood. All of a sudden, he looked very old, with the twinkle gone from his eye and face falling into grave lines. "These are troubled days, da, more so than I am seeing before."

"What...what do you mean?" asked Jack, unexpectedly struck by the usually jolly Russian's seriousness.

"It is making sense in my head." North fixed him with a despairing look. "Pitch shot Sandy...killed him, we all thinking, for little while. But he is coming back, and Pitch is attacked by own nightmares...months later, Pitch is dead, and Sandy is sick."

"You, you think it's connected?" Jack questioned, feeling foolish, but really, there was no other explanation.

"All I am knowing...all I am knowing is that once I thought Pitch Black could not be killed...and here his body lies." North rubbed his eyes tiredly. "Something has fallen, Jack. And I am not knowing what it is."

Jack was silent, unable to reply. He thought back to the events of that Easter. Pitch had been as surprised as any of them when Sandy had come back, and when his own nightmares had attacked him. But Sandy had never been afraid, not once, treated the whole dying thing afterwards as if he had just fallen into a snooze and missed the disastrous Easter. Too overjoyed to have him back, the Guardians hadn't questioned it. Whatever link that connected the two of them...Sandy must have known that Pitch would be unable to kill him permanently. But Pitch hadn't, and if North was right, it had killed him. But Pitch wasn't coming back. And if Pitch died as a consequence of him shooting to kill Sandy...and if killing Sandy meant killing Pitch...

"He's dying," said Jack quietly.

"Da," North agreed gravely. "But what we should be asking is why is he not being dead yet? What is keeping him here?"

"I'm going to visit Jamie," Jack decided suddenly.

Surprised by the topic change, North clapped Jack on the shoulder. "Da, Jack. That is best."

* * *

A few hours later, it was a flushed and breathless Jamie that pulled a still-laughing Jack into his room by the window. Jamie's hair was damp with snow and he was beginning to shiver, so Jack had ordered they go inside before his favourite believer could catch a cold.

Jamie flopped back on his bed, his heart light and free. The closet was no longer the dark and threatening thing it had been, but the sight of it made him remember the last time Jack had been in his room, and the long absence afterwards. "How is Pitch?" he asked Jack.

The wintry boy suddenly looked very uncomfortable. "...fine," he said.

"Is that where you've been?" Jamie asked without reprove. He knew Jack had duties that would take him away from Jamie, despite how much he wished he could play with Jack all the time.

"Yes!" said Jack quickly, jumping on the excuse. "He's been...sick. But he's going to be fine. Just you wait." He offered Jamie a wide smile, but it seemed fake, and his icy eyes looked quiet and sad.

Sensing that Jack didn't want to talk about it, Jamie pulled his computer to him and decided to try his second favourite thing after snowball fights- researching new spirits.

"I got this really cool email yesterday from one of the spirit sites I follow," Jamie explained, typing in his password and logging on quickly. Jack stared in blatant curiosity. He was endlessly fascinated by technology- Jamie didn't know quite how old Jack was, but he suspected it was long before things like mobile phones were exactly common.

"Yeah?" Jack humoured him, hopping lightly onto the bed beside Jamie and climbing audaciously beneath the covers. He snuggled down until all Jamie could see was Jack's bright white hair against the pillow.

He laughed. "Jack! Come on, I want you to see this." He pulled up a foggy image taken from a camera phone. "They're calling him the Grey Soldier."

"The Grey Soldier?" Jack repeated scornfully. "That's ridiculous." Curiosity piqued, he peered over Jamie's shoulder and blinked at the blurry image.

It was of a smashed up car lying in a ditch somewhere. The green paint was chipped and scratched, and the windscreen was smashed. There was a human arm visible over the top of the steering wheel and a crop of dark hair in the driver's seat. But it was the strange discolouration beside it that Jamie was pointing to. In appearance, it was nothing more than a column of shifting fog. But if Jack squinted, and turned his head a certain way, he could  _almost_ see a figure, holding a tall staff of some sort, dipped with a trailing edge of blood.

"Huh," he said, with a shrug. He read the caption.  _The Grey Soldier._

Eagerly, Jamie scrolled down and pointed excitedly to the picture underneath. "Look, the woman who took the photo found this." It was a pure white, silvery poppy, dead, laying innocently exactly where the car had been. The very centre of the poppy was touched with blood red bleeding out slowly into the rest of the petals. "Poppies! In  _Wales!_ "

"It's weird," Jack allowed. "I haven't met this guy, though. He's probably a hoax."

"But- look, here's another story-  _My daughter says this Grey Soldier came to her after my husband died-_ that's in the US, and here, Nairobi, that's someone from Australia, look, China-" Jamie chattered excitedly, his brown eyes lighting up. "They all say the same!"

Jack chuckled indulgently. "Sure, Jamie."

Jamie pouted. "Come on, Jack! He  _has_ to be real!" He fell back against the headboard. " _The Grey Soldier._ That's so  _cool."_

"Hey," Jack whined, "I'm cool too, right? I am Jack  _Frost._ "

Jamie elbowed him with a gap-toothed grin. "That was so bad."

They lapsed into silence, Jack struggling to regain his breath from laughing too much and Jamie thinking wistfully about the new spirit. Jack panted for air, grinning at his first believer. A reckless idea came to his head, and he didn't even bother to think before suggesting it. "Hey- wanna see if we can meet this guy?"

"What?" yelped Jamie. "Are you serious?!" His grin was so wide it threatened to split his face in half.

"Yeah, sure," said Jack. "Remembrance Day is soon, right? Seems like he'd dig that, if you know, he is real."

"He  _is,"_ Jamie asserted fervently. "I  _know_ he is." He flung his arms around Jack's midsection in a tight hug. "This is going to be awesome!"

Laughing at their own audacity, the boys set about planning how to meet a ghost.

* * *

_Sandy couldn't breathe. There was sand everywhere, choking him, holding him down, filling him, getting inside of him and changing him. He tried to dig his way out, but whipping wind only covered him further, until the remote sky was gone, drowned out by crushed rock. Slowly, his struggles became weaker, and weaker. It was hideously familiar._

_Had he died like this before?_

 


	7. Kozmotis

It dawned a clear, cold Sunday, low banks of fog rolling in over the town of Burgess and smothering everything with soft, amorphous tendrils of white. There was snow on the ground and artful patterns of frost on the windows, so far into his season, it was rare Jack Frost left his domain, although recently, with the Sandman's pervading illness, he could be found far more regularly at the North Pole, holding a tiny, hot hand through the worst of the ex wishing star's terrible nightmares and wishing he could do more.

The sun was a weak pale thing, blinking shyly from behind the thick cloud cover, a wobbly, wintry reflection of it's powerful summer heat. The sturdy roofs of the houses were decorated with heavy burdens of snow, proof of Jack's overnight restlessness, waiting for the all-important eighth of November to finally arrive, and the finalisation of the plan he and Jamie had spent weeks planning, between Jack's frequent long absences.

_Remembrance Sunday was finally here._

Initially, Jack had gone along with Jamie's mad plan of meeting the Grey Soldier simply to make the younger boy smile, and have a laugh. He hadn't actually thought it would come to fruition, but Jamie was deadly serious, and spent weeks tracking the Grey Soldier's irregular route over the globe- he noted he always seemed to be drawn north, moving in a wavy zigzag pattern heading south, then abruptly north again, tracking him through sightings pinned up on a large map on his wall. Somehow, Jamie had used the sightings to estimate a time of arrival in Burgess on Remembrance Sunday. It was all very mysterious to Jack, who had largely spent their planning meetings slumped on Jamie's bed, watching the boy gesticulate wildly and blinking in confusion.

It was dawn, sleeting through the tops of the clouds with pale golden rays, reminding Jack of the ashen colour of the Sandman's lusterless eyes. Surely late enough to wake Jamie and get the next section of their plan underway?

Too eager to wait, Jack hopped down from the tree he had been nestling in and allowed the wind to swoop him up into it's cold embrace, tussling his hair playfully. Jack laughed, his heart lightening. He was excited to meet this new spirit. He wondered if the Grey Soldier would be like Jack was, when he first woke up.  _At least I can spare him from that,_ he thought.

He landed lightly on Jamie's windowsill, peering into the darkened room. Jamie was an unmoving lump in the bed, and Jack grinned mischievously. Quickly and silently, he unhooked the latch always left temptingly open in case Jack should drop by and entered the room soundlessly, forming a snowball in one hand.

Sneaking over to Jamie's bedside, Jack tugged the cover away and dropped the slushy snowball right on Jamie's exposed neck. Jamie shot up with a yell that Jack, eyes widening and thinking of a curious Sophie in the next room, quickly stifled with his hands.

Jamie glowered at him with all the indignity of an eight year old woken up too early on a Sunday morning. Jack smirked back at him unrepentantly.

"You're  _evil,_ " Jamie hissed.

Jack smirked. "Not evil, just misunderstood," he sang, and casually iced up the headboard, making Jamie glare and burrow into his blankets, "And come on! I thought you wanted to meet that guy today."

Jamie's eyes suddenly lit up. "Oh yeah!" he pumped the air. "Give me a sec- I'll be outside!"

"Sure," said Jack, rolling his eyes indulgently, but he couldn't quell his own excitement. It was happening, finally happening.

It took Jamie nearly five minutes to get ready, during which Jack hopped with impatience and sulkily iced up parts of Jamie's room, causing the eight year old to swear at him with surprisingly vile language for one so young. Jack, laughingly, told him off, but his eyes were sparkling with amusement. If only North could hear-!

Once Jamie was heavily kitted out in a suitable thick coat, woolly hat, gloves and a scarf, Jack grabbed him around the waist and they shot out of the window with all the speed of a bullet, Jamie whooping with ecstasy and clinging to Jack like a little monkey. They were headed for the war memorial in the center of town, where the remembrance service would be held later that day to honour the fallen soldiers. But Jack and Jamie intended to pay their respects a bit earlier.

Jamie had theorised that the Grey Soldier, like Jack, did not have an instantaneous method of transport, otherwise the slow, meandering corkscrew pattern Jamie had noticed would not have happened, and that he appeared to work in one sphere of the globe, with Burgess as a rough epicenter travelling north before circling back round. This pattern put him straight in Burgess early in the morning, shortly after dawn. It was all mystery to Jack; if he hadn't known Jamie was thoroughly untouched by dark sprites, he might have declared him a wizard boy.

Breathless with excitement, Jack and Jamie landed on a park bench with a good view of the memorial...and waited.

...and waited...

...and waited.

By the time three hours had gone by, Jack's patience had been completely eroded, and he was reduced to poking Jamie with his icy fingers, trying to get a reaction from the Bennett boy, who was doing his best to ignore Jack's existence and concentrate on the task.

"Stop it Jack!" Jamie snapped impatiently, pushing Jack away to continue scouring the empty memorial through his binoculars. He sighed, and gave up. "He's not coming, Jack..."

"Wait!" Jack hissed, pointing over Jamie's shoulder. Jamie whirled around, expectant, and they both stared in awe at the misty figure, barely visible in the early morning light.

"Is that-?"

_"It has to be."_

The figure strode closer with great, long steps that didn't even touch the ground, his long cloak billowing out behind him and sowing the ground with blood red poppies for half an instant before they disappeared into dust. Jack was aware his mouth was hanging open, but he couldn't close it for the sheer, speechless  _awesomeness_  of the Grey Soldier. He had a scythe that was bigger than two Jacks! And his cloak- long and ragged at the hems as if he had trailed it through barbed wire, was crimson at the bottom, like streaks of blood, and snow white at the top. And his armor was literally the  _coolest_ thing Jack had ever seen- pun very much intended.

"Wow," Jamie breathed.

The Grey Soldier was heading directly for the memorial, walking right through anything that got in his way, including big trees. He halted before the memorial, and bent to lay a wreath of pure white poppies on the marble. For a moment, he was still, his grave head bowed, paying his respects, before he rose and lifted his scythe, apparently preparing to move on.

There was no way in hell Jack was letting him go that easily.

"Hey!" he shouted, and the figure turned his head slowly, just in time for the snowball to nail a direct hit. Jack yelled in triumph, hearing the thump of snow against- wood?

He blinked, and then stared. The snowball had gone straight through the Grey Soldier's head as if he wasn't even there. Was he some sort of ghost?  _How incorporeal did you have to get before even snow went straight through you?_

"Uh oh," said Jamie quietly, as the Grey Soldier walked towards them with a steady, measured pace. He started backing away quickly, but Jack wouldn't move, too busy staring at the approaching spirit, ignorant of Jamie's tugging on his sleeve.

Something dreadful was happening inside Jack, that same, sick feeling of darkness and despair that he got whenever he stayed overlong at Sandy's side. A terrible recognition was growing in his heart, and Jack didn't want to know, pushed it away, tried his best to ignore it. The feeling was persistent. He had seen this man before- but when?

The Grey Soldier stopped a few paces in front of Jack, and this close, Jack was able to observe him far more clearly. The Soldier made no other movement, waiting composedly for Jack's judgement, his stiff posture never wavering.

The Grey Soldier was a tall man, very thin, as if he had been starved, although it was difficult to tell under the silver armor, embossed with strange silvery designs in a slightly darker grey, flowing lines and abstract patterns which suggested vine like shapes. The armor formed a high collar, swept back to leave the long pale column of his throat bare and mirroring the spiked lines of his hair, pencil lead grey streaked through with brilliant white. The great scythe he held in his left hand was a head or two taller than he was, with a darkish grey handle chased with gleaming wire and a shining blade honed to razor sharpness. He stood an inch or two off the ground, and everywhere his bare skin showed, it was criss-crossed with thin, small scars.

_No._

Jack inhaled like he had just been punched in the gut, and before he knew what he was doing, drifted forward a step, so close to the Grey Soldier their chests almost met. That unmistakable face tilted to regard him with silent solemnity, and Jack's throat grew tight. His mind was a storm of questions and confusion.

It wasn't possible. It couldn't be. Jack had seen his dead body! There was no way- that this could be-

The Grey Soldier blinked slowly. His eyes were grey like mercury, unrippling and ever welling with tears that curved gentle tracks over his hollow cheekbones. Jack knew that proud nose, slim, long face, sharp jawed and high cheekboned, thin lipped, shoulders set in a flat line. It was impossible, there was no way- but this man was the exact double of...

"Pitch?" Jack asked softly, hardly daring to voice his guess aloud. It couldn't be true-  _Pitch had died, Jack had held his body._

He lifted a hand and before Jamie could stop him, pressed it flat against the Grey Soldier's breastplate, just to check he was actually there, that this wasn't some bizarre hallucination.

The metal was very solid under his fingertips, and icy cold, colder than anything Jack had ever felt before. The chill of the grave. He swallowed dryly, and glanced up to meet the soldier's implacable, sad eyes, which were just as wide as his. He clearly had not been expecting Jack to reach out.

The soldier shook his head slowly, but the sad stare was drawn to Jack's hand, winter pale against the ghostly silver of his breastplate, and almost hesitantly, the Grey Soldier lifted his own hand and, with plenty pause, cupped Jack's cheek shyly. Jack blinked slightly, startled- the man's touch felt like plunging that half of his face into ice water, but the cold had never bothered Jack, and he understood well the need to  _touch,_ just to make sure, absolutely sure,  _I am real._ He pressed back against the hand awkwardly, watching the soldier's long pale throat bob in a swallow as the tears streaked faster down his face.

The soldier cleared his throat carefully. " _Aururrkozsmotissokshpyitshinerr._ " The rippling language was unfamiliar to Jack- a strange rush of sighs and barely heard throaty murmurs. The only thing he recognized was  _"pyuh-itc-sh"_ which took some turning around in his mind before he understood.

"Pitch?" he tried again, and something like frustration creased the soldier's brow, and he said,  _"thakkanpyitsh. aururr_ kozsmotiss.  _thak?"_

Jack stared at him. At his side, Jamie whispered, "What's he saying?" Jamie's eyes were as wide as saucers.

The soldier blinked at him. There were still tears in his eyes, but now his thumb was moving in soothing circles on Jack's cheek, like a parent consoling a young child. Very carefully, the soldier repeated, " _aururr kozsmotiss."_ His chin dipped to indicate himself.  _"kozsmotiss."_

"Kozismottis?" Jamie tried, and the soldier winced at the butchering of the pronunciation, but nodded. That at least appeared to be a universal signal. "Jack- he was telling us his name! He's uh,  _Kozzimot-_ what did you say?" he asked apologetically, and with weary patience, the Grey Soldier said, with great emphasis,  _"kozsmotiss."_

"Kozisssimoh-tiss." Jamie grimaced. "Urgh, your name is hard. I'm Jamie.  _Jay-mee,"_ he enunciated clearly.

The soldier's gauntleted hand dropped from Jack's cheek to rest on the crook of his extended arm as he bent to look Jamie in the eyes. Somehow, the act of lowering himself to be on a physical level with the eight year old greatly reassured Jack, hitting him like a freight train. This guy wasn't Pitch, no matter how much he looked like him. Pitch would never do something like that. He felt the tension in his body relax.

" _Shhy-aaymii,"_ the Grey Soldier attempted, tilting his head with what dared to be a twitch playing at his lips- a beginning of a smile?

Jamie nodded excitedly. "Yeah! Jamie, that's me. This is Jack," he gestured up at the frost spirit, who realised his hand was still pressed against this complete stranger's chest and made to drop his arm, only for an icy hand to cover his own, long thin fingers twining easily with Jack's, holding it still against him. Jack blinked in shock, but the soldier's grey eyes were soft with pleading, and Jack remembered too well the raw relief of discovering someone who could  _touch,_ so intense as to be pain.

 _"Shhya..."_ The soldier appeared to be having trouble with his name, trying out different sounds in his mouth before eventually settling on,  _"Shhhya- akk?"_ The end 'K' sounded slightly strangled, but Jack wouldn't complain.

Bravely, Jack set his tongue to deciphering the stranger's own name. He tried out several combinations, making Jamie laugh and the soldier's lips pull upwards only slightly. On his tenth attempt, Jack hit gold.  _"Kozz-moh-tiss?"_

The Grey Soldier nodded rapidly, and a rare smile appeared on his face- not so much a movement of the lips but a lightening of the dreadful sadness in his eyes, and though his tears never stopped, the small beacon of joy was like a break in a terrible dark storm. Jack found himself staring, only becoming aware of it when a silver blush began sketching the white of the soldier's cheeks grey, and he quickly snapped out of it, unaccountably flustered. He pulled his hand out of the soldier's, immediately regretting it but needing the space.

"Kozmotis!" Jamie shouted gleefully. "As in the cosmos?"

The lightness in Kozmotis' eyes had disappeared the instant Jack's hand had left his, and his face had lapsed back into the mournful, silent mask of before. Jack felt suddenly very guilty.

Kozmotis did not answer Jamie's question, only stared silently off into the distance as if he could hear a voice none of the others could calling to him. There was a bizarre longing on his features.

Snubbed, Jamie shuffled awkwardly, uncertain of what to do next. "Do you know the Guardians?" he tried, and Jack winced. It was a common misconception of Jamie's that every spirit was as impressed with the Guardians as he was.

There was no answer, but Jamie was not to be deterred.

"North? Tooth? Bunny?" Desperately, "Sandy?"

Kozmotis blinked and suddenly focused intently on Jamie, dropping to one knee, his grip sliding smoothly down the scythe.  _"Sssaanderrrssson?"_

"Uh," Jamie looked surprised at this sudden interest. "Sandy, yeah. Um, the Sandman? Sends out dreams?"

Kozmotis looked thoughtful. " _Konne?"_

Jack and Jamie looked at each other helplessly, and Kozmotis' brow furrowed in frustration.

_"Gah- guh.. guh-ohl-"_

"Gold?" Jack guessed, and Kozmotis nodded in relief. "Yeah, he's gold. Do you know him?"

" _Kan."_ Kozmotis looked suddenly, incredibly mournful, his eyes welling with further tears. He shook his head.  _"Kan. Shhen aururr pyitsh."_ He hesitated.  _"Ssssanderrrssson pyitsh akkonne."_

"Con? Con is gold?" Jamie confirmed, and Kozmotis nodded slowly. "Sandy...Pitch...gold?"

Jack shrugged helplessly.

" _Meyyaaan. Ssssanderrrssson- pyitsh,"_ Kozmotis stabbed the haft of his scythe into the ground much like Jack would do with his staff and then held up two hands. He opened his right, " _sssanderrssonn, thak?"_ Jack nodded eagerly, and Kozmotis indicated the other hand, " _Pyitsh."_

"The right hand is Sandy, the left is Pitch?" Jamie parsed, and Kozmotis nodded again.

Kozmotis linked his two hands together firmly, and said, " _Meyyaaan,"_ again, very clearly. He looked up at Jack, and at a loss, Jack parroted, "Meh-yan?"

The soldier shook his hands, showing how unbreakable they were, and then abruptly pulled away his left hand- the Pitch hand- and let it rest, open, against his knee. " _Kan pyitsh."_  Jack felt the bile rise in the back of his throat as he recalled Pitch's spread-eagled body. He waved the fingers of the Sandy hand, then clenched it in a fist and shook his head.  _"Kan ssssaaanderrrssson. Kan meyyaaan."_

"If there's no Pitch..." Jack breathed in dawning horror, "There can be no Sandy?"

"What do you mean no Pitch?" Jamie asked. "I thought he was with you? Wasn't he getting better?  _Jack?"_

Still looking at Jack, Kozmotis nodded slowly. His eyes were grave.  _"Meyyaaan."_

"How do you know this?" Jack demanded. His mind seized on an idea like a dog with a bone. "If you know what was happening- you can fix it! Can't you?" He grabbed his staff. "Come on- we have to get to the Pole- Sandy needs us!" Jack leapt onto the wind, hovering urgently. There was no time to waste! Soon Sandy would be just as good as ever- sand bright gold, eyes warm and smile ready.

"Jack!" shouted Jamie, "What's going on? What's wrong with Sandy?"

Kozmotis rose silently, but his eyes were fixed on Jack, not Jamie. Tired of being ignored, Jamie tried to pull Kozmotis' scythe- but his hand went straight through it.

"What?"

"You're not a spirit," said Jack.

Kozmotis shook his head. " _Kan."_ Jack ignored him.

"We have to go!" he said, giving the tall soldier a desperate stare. " _Please._ He's my friend."

 _"Meyyaaan akpyitsh ssanderrrssonque,"_ said Kozmotis heavily, but Jack did not understand and did not care. All he knew was that Kozmotis knew something- anything, he had to.

He seized Kozmotis' hand and tugged it. Kozmotis stared at their joined hands and linked their fingers carefully, as if he was unused to such an action. With a stab of pity, Jack supposed he probably wasn't. Kozmotis tipped his scythe towards Jamie gently, and said,  _"Shhyaamiii?"_

Jack looked at his first believer, who looked very upset to have been left out of the loop. He swallowed guiltily, and knew he would have to come clean.

"Jamie...when I said Pitch was resting...he wasn't."

"Jack?" Jamie looked horrified. "No, what are you saying?"

"Jamie, Pitch is dead. He has been for weeks. And ever since he died, Sandy's been sick and we don't know why. Until now," he gestured at Kozmotis. The freezing touch over his hand tightened slightly in response to his name.

Jamie gaped. The blood had rushed from his face, leaving him pale and wan. "No," he said quietly, and then louder, "no,  _no!_ You...killed him?" he demanded hysterically, "you killed  _Pitch?"_

"No!" Jack cried, but then fell short. What if- well- it had been the Guardians who had...

"You  _killed_ him," whispered Jamie, his eyes wide and horrorstruck, shaking his head. Abruptly he turned on his heel and ran away, dashing off into the fresh-falling snow.

"Jamie!" Jack shouted, but Jamie ignored him. The winter spirit started after him, but the grip of Kozmotis' hand stopped him. He glanced back, in agony, at the Grey Soldier, who shook his head slowly.

"I can't just-" Jack whispered, agonised, but Kozmotis only pulled at his hand.

"Jamie," said Jack, and there was sympathy in Kozmotis' eyes, but also steel. They were going- and they were going now, if Jack wanted to reach the Pole in time. Kozmotis glanced up at the sky, and at the appearance of the moon there only he had noticed, despite it being broad daylight. " _Shhhyyaakk,"_ he said insistently.

With a shudder, Jack turned away, though it split his heart. Numbly, he allowed Kozmotis to lead him north- to Pitch's body, to Sandy's sickness, and the strange questions they both posed.


	8. Fever Dreams

It took far less time to reach the Pole than Jack had anticipated. He had imagined Kozmotis' method of travel to be rather slow, since he just walked from place to place, but clearly, he hadn't taken into account that the Grey Soldier was a never ending source of defying the normal laws of physics, therefore, for every half-kilometre Jack shot forwards, aided by the wind, Kozmotis took one step, appearing for all the world as if he were simply enjoying a Sunday morning stroll as Jack's eyes watered from the speed.

 

If it hadn't been perilous to do so, he might've gaped the entire way, but Jack didn't fancy having his jaw ripped off because of the speed they were travelling at.

 

It was the shortest trip to the Pole, excluding North's snowglobes, Jack had ever made. In retrospect the impromptu race was a bad idea.

 

Nonetheless, the bit of fun had made Jack quite forget his worries, and it was a breathless-with-laughter spirit who surprised North by plummeting in through the window of his workshop, shrieking, "I won! I won!" North did not even have time to open his mouth to tell Jack off before his jaw hit the floor of it's own volition.

 

A sedate spirit had just walked through the wall as if it wasn't even there, curiously emotional eyes glittering through a veil of tears with amusement. A small smile was tugging fondly at the pale lips as he regarded the cheering winter sprite. North murmured a soft curse in Russian, his blue eyes wide with wonder. He had never seen such finely crafted armor like that in his life, intricately embellished but no less functional for it, and that wicked scythe was a work of art by itself. The ethereal spirit wore it as if it weighed nothing, and North itched to have an excuse to examine it. He had to forcibly remind himself to ask first.

 

"Jack?" he asked, an appeal for some sort of introduction, eyes unwavering from a particularly fine pattern on the spirit's gauntlet-  _Shostakovich,_  that must have taken years to carve even with the most patient tools!- but Jack seemed quite unaware of North's presence, too busy celebrating his 'victory'. "Jack!"

 

The pale spirit turned his head to him, and North frowned, his bushy brows drawing close. The man's face was reminiscent of another's, a cold cruel face currently hidden underneath a blanket in North's private workroom. _Pitch...?_ But he was not, obviously, this man gave North's belly quite a different feeling. North trusted his gut instinct, which told him this crying spirit could be trusted.

 

The spirit made an odd gesture with the hand not holding the scythe, twisting his hand over his sternum and touching his thumb to his first two forefingers, inclining his head. North supposed it was a greeting.

 

"I am Nicholas St North!" he told the spirit, extending his hand to for a shake and to pull the other spirit into a friendly hug. There was no reason to treat him like a stranger, if he was a friend of Jack's, he was a friend of North's.

 

The spirit eyed the extended hand, and then hesitantly, the ghostly pale fingers reached out, perhaps intending to take North's hand, but instead, they went straight through, disappearing into North's flesh as if the spirit was not even there. North cursed and automatically jerked his hand back; it felt as if his skin had been plunged into a cold so sharp and severe it penetrated right down to his bones. He half expected his fingers to turn instantly black with frostbite, but apart from paling, his hand was untouched.

 

The spirit's face fell, and tears streaked down the familiar face with increased frequency. Jack appeared to notice his friend's distress, and to North's amazement, touched the spirit's arm. Clearly, the spirit was just as solid to Jack as North was. North hummed. A mystery!

 

"This is Kozmotis," he said, "Kozmotis- meet North, he's my friend and a Guardian."

 

North's eyes widened. _"Kozmotis Pitchiner?"_  The spirit smiled sadly and nodded silently, his pale fingers curling around Jack's.

 

"You know him?" Jack asked, confused, glancing between North and Kozmotis, but Kozmotis only shrugged lightly and shook his head at Jack. He did not know North.

 

"Do I know him?" North repeated dumbly, "Jack, he is General Kozmotis Pitchiner, of the Golden Age! He is who Pitch used to be- before he became spirit!"

 

_"What?!"_

* * *

 

Kozmotis Pitchiner stood stiffly in a corner, keeping out of the way of the peculiar spirits known as the Guardians, who appeared to be having a raging debate. There was seemingly four of them, a tall Pooka, though the most oddly dressed Pooka he had seen, for he carried the tribal tattoos of the Bunnymunds and of a sorcerer, yet wore no robes and carried no staff, a woman, who, to Kozmotis' silent confusion, was covered in smooth, glossy feathers and had the wings of a hummingbird, the friendly bear of a man he had met before, and Jack, who alternated between vigorously protesting Kozmotis' goodness and sending him amazed looks.

 

 _Shyamii- kan,_  Jamie, had said that the golden one would be with the Guardians, and Jack had also said so, but Kozmotis could feel no trace of his presence anywhere. He had gotten used to the warm, soothing feeling of Sanderson's core aligned with his own during the battles- he assumed it was a battle, the memories were exceedingly indistinct- when Sanderson had been swallowed in the darkness, just like Kozmotis-who-was-Pitch. He had protected him, held him close to his heart, until the shadows had forced him to relinquish him or be shattered under their force.

 

He had been hoping he could see Sanderson's face before he died, Kozmotis was curious to see the  _konne-vir_ , the golden man, he had held in his heart for far longer than a few days. In his memories, he shone so brightly his features were obscured, and Pitch had often had difficulty distinguishing him from the sun and other powerful light sources. There was a reason beyond the dislike of sunlight that they only fought at night, when it was easier to see the edges of his form, and where Sanderson would have trouble distinguishing Pitch from any other shape of complete blackness.

 

His knuckles tightened slightly, the only outward sign of his distress. The mysterious pull had gotten stronger the closer he had gotten to the Pole, and it was now maddening, urging him to follow it to whatever hideous darkness crouched at the end. Kozmotis did not want to, but resisting the pull was making him feel nauseous.

 

He swallowed dryly, resting his head against his scythe. The arguing voices paused, and then a flurry of Jack's language started up again. It took Kozmotis' aching brain a moment to understand it.

 

"Is he okay?" A woman's voice- the bird creature, then. She sounded worried.

 

"I don't know," that was his Jack.

 

There was a hesitant pause, and then, joy, he heard a soft question in a _civilized_  language.  _"Are you well, General?"_  The accent was unfamiliar, and the words were extremely rusty, as if the speaker had almost forgotten how to speak it.

 

Kozmotis' head shot up. The Pooka, of course.  _"Stars shine upon us."_  Just because the Pooka had apparently forgotten how to greet someone of equal standing as him it didn't mean that Kozmotis had to be rude.

 

The Pooka's eyes widened and he blushed slightly, and there was an awkward pause while he scrambled to remember the correct response. " _And light speak through us,"_ he managed eventually, looking terribly discomforted at having been caught out.

 

" _It's nothing, sir-sorcerer,"_  Kozmotis reassured him quietly. The somewhat ambiguous answer allowed the Pooka to regain his composure.

 

 _"Are you certain?_ " The Pooka pressed,  _"I have some skill in healing."_

 

 _"I confess I think I am beyond even the remedies of the Pookan Brotherhood,"_  murmured Kozmotis. He glanced at the other Guardians, who were all looking nonplussed. He inclined his head and made a gesture of thanks that loosely translated to _I am in your debt_.

 

The Pooka did not seem to have understood his sign, but he accepted the polite rebuff nonetheless.  _"I am E. Aster. Bunnymund,"_  he said, _"you have met my companions, forgive me, General-"_  he broke off and exchanged words with the Guardians.

 

"Bunny, what was he saying?" the bird woman asked nervously, clearly uncomfortable with not knowing the language. Kozmotis wondered why she was so bothered.

 

"It sounded like he was telling you off," Jack said cheekily, but Bunnymund glared at him.

 

"He wasn't," bit out Bunnymund, "I was asking him if he was alright, he said he was fine."

 

"What language was that? It's nothing I know," the birdwoman said.

 

"Lesser Constellar, it's the only one apart from Pookan I remember, I'm not sure if he knows Pookan." Bunnymund glanced up at Kozmotis and spoke again, _"This is Tooth, North, and Jack, we are Guardians, and we protect this earth's children."_

 

 _"I am aware,"_  Kozmotis said mildly. He had had trouble matching names to the faces, they all looked very different from when Kozmotis saw with Pitch's eyes. He looked at the other guardians and said,  _"Stars shine upon us, my name is Kozmotis Pitchiner."_  He made a small gesture of greeting, as he had done with North.

 

Tooth looked to Bunnymund for a translation, which he quickly supplied. "Hello," she said unsurely. "I'm Tooth." Bunnymund began to repeat this in Constellar, but Kozmotis raised a hand and said politely,  _"I understood."_

 

"So you can hear it but can't speak it?" Jack asked, having caught on. Kozmotis favored him with a small smile and a nod. Technically, he supposed he could, but the language sounded so harsh, he had very little idea how to pronounce the words. "Like Sandy, I suppose."

 

The mood instantly sobered. Kozmotis observed their gazes flick to a door, solemnly closed, and decided the mysterious Sanderson was behind it. Curiously, he drifted towards the door, and Jack stood up and opened it for him, a courtesy that was much appreciated. He was aware of the other Guardians giving Jack worried looks, obviously wondering if Kozmotis could be trusted.

 

Kozmotis halted beside the bed, peering down at the unmoving figure with something very close to pity. Stripped of Pitch's shadow, the Sandman's glow was much diminished, and Kozmotis could easily see a soft round little face, a short, pudgy body, delicate hands and long, wispy hair. Kozmotis reached out hesitantly, feeling drawn to do so- he could feel that tug compelling him simultaneously towards the figure on the bed and the floor below, in a small room where a body resided. Sanderson suited his element, Kozmotis thought, soft and warm and comforting like dreams, but his skin was pale and his eyes ringed with exhaustion and fear. He was sweating in his sleep, tossing and turning. Kozmotis could hear his cries- soundless, he supposed, to the others, even the Pooka appeared to have forgotten how to whisper to the stars- hoarse, aching cries that begged for his torment to end.

 

To Jack, he appeared stone-faced and unmoved, only the ever present sadness in his eyes turning heavier and melancholy, like thick grey clouds before a rainstorm. The Guardians had paused in the doorway, somehow understanding to keep this moment halfway private whilst ensuring the safety of their beloved fifth member. When Kozmotis leaned down to press his ghostly lips close to Sandy's ear, Jack couldn't help flinching forward with the rest of them, preparing to stop him. Kozmotis looked too much like Pitch to forgive such tender acts towards Sandy, especially when he was weak.

 

Jack couldn't hear what Kozmotis said, but almost immediately, the lines on Sandy's forehead smoothed out and his tight grip on the bedsheets loosened. Jack stared.

 

"How did you do that?" He demanded in a whisper, instinctively lowering his voice in the presence of a sleeper, despite three hundred years of being unheard and the knowledge Sandy would not wake even if he screamed in his ear.

 

Kozmotis ignored him, surveying Sandy with something approaching interest on his remote face. The arm holding the scythe twitched slightly, and Tooth almost leaped forward, convinced Kozmotis was going to let it fall upon the helpless dreamweaver.

 

Sandy's eyelids fluttered, he shifted in bed, and his mouth parted in a silent yawn.

 

The Guardians gasped. Bunny could feel the sudden hope like a fire in his heart as all four leaned forward, praying Sandy would finally, finally wake up.

 

And he did.

 

His eyes slowly opened, blinking and hazy at first, revealing those powerful golden irises and fat black pupils; it was dark in the room. Sandy's mouth opened but nothing came out, and he turned his head carefully, his eyes alighting on his friends standing in the doorway. A familiar gap-toothed smile tugged weakly at the Sandman's lips, and Jack nearly collapsed with relief at the recognition in Sandy's gold eyes.

 

Jack had taken barely a step towards Sandy when the little dreamweaver noticed the tall, glowing and ephemeral figure standing proudly at his side. Instantly, Sandy went rigid, and began to shake from head to toe as if gripped by chill. His mouth opened and closed like a drowning man seeking air and he appeared to be trying to move, tugging weakly against the blankets.

 

"Get back!" ordered Bunny, but Kozmotis didn't move, neither stepping closer nor further away. The soldier's head tilted as he observed the struggling ex-wishing star with something like idle curiosity.

 

Kozmotis' uncaring attitude abruptly ignited Jack's anger, and he moved to Sandy's side, wrapping his arms around the little body and lifting him free. As ever, Sandy was unexpectedly light, and burning hot, like holding an incandescent core of molten metal. Sandy's eyes were glazed and feverish as he clawed at Jack's restraining arms; startled, Jack let him go. Roughly Sandy landed on the bed and without seeming to care swayed to his knees, his tiny fists reaching for Kozmotis desperately. His mouth continued to open and close, mouthing words though he could not force his voice to come.

 

Jack stared at Kozmotis and saw the pity in his grey eyes, the sadness in his tears. Abruptly he realised Kozmotis' uncaring act was just that, little more than an act, and if he had had any doubt, Kozmotis' next action disproved it.

 

The tall soldier rammed the haft of his scythe into the ground, just as he had done in the park in Burgess- somehow, the phantasmagorical scythe remained upright without having actually entered the wood at all. Then he knelt, carefully, his cloak folding around him, in front of Sandy so that the delirious star could reach his face. A tiny hand pressed longingly against Kozmotis' cheek but went straight through him as if he had not even been there, but Sandy barely seemed to notice let alone care, still gasping his silent pleas.

 

Tears were streaming down both their cheeks- Sandy's tinted faintly gold as they slid down his wan yellow cheeks, Kozmotis' silver. Sandy continued to reach out to Kozmotis, sobbing as he was unable to get a solid grip on him. Jack watched Sandy's mouth and felt his own tears brimming in his eyes.

 

 _"I'm sorry, I'm_ _sorry,"_ Sandy was mouthing,  _"I'm so, so sorry. I'm sorry."_

 

Feeble strength spent, Sandy collapsed against the bed, his short arms trembling and flopping weakly at Kozmotis. Kozmotis took pity on him and extended a pale glowing hand, resting it gently over Sandy's shoulder without touching him, and resting his head sideways against the bed, so that Sandy could look into his eyes. Sandy tried to touch Kozmotis' cheek, and wept as he realised he still could not.

 

 _"Pitch,"_  Sandy begged soundlessly,  _"I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Pitch."_

 

 _"I forgive you,"_  whispered Kozmotis in Constellar, and then, softly, _"Sleep."_

 

Sandy's eyes slid closed, and his breath evened out into that of a deep, dreaming sleep. Kozmotis rose, silently, and picked up his scythe. His face was blank and cold as he walked straight through the Guardians without bothering to ask them to move out of the way, but his tears never stopped.

 

 


	9. Symbols

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dead bodies. Wonderful.

Jack lifted Sandy carefully into his arms, making certain to cradle the sleeping dreamweaver's head against the crook of his elbow, the same way he had seen parents hold their newborn children. One of Sandy's small hands gently tightened in Jack's hoodie and the winter spirit could feel the warm puffs of his breath, uncomfortably hot against his neck. It was not a particularly pleasant sensation for a winter spirit like Jack, but he bore it without complaint. His staff he jammed against the side of his body, trapped by his arm.

Jack carried Sandy after the retreating backs of the Guardians, who were numbly following the drifting form of Kozmotis, who was floating- not striding forward comfortably as Jack had seen him do before, but drifting as if propelled by an unseen wind, legs unmoving, as if he were some cut-ghost from a horror movie, not the last fragments of Kozmotis Pitchiner, whatever that entailed.

He should have left Sandy to rest on the bed, but he didn't want to leave the dreamweaver by himself. Sandy's delirium had badly shaken all of them; as he caught up to North, he saw the big Russian was uncharacteristically quiet and solemn, and the light of wonder dancing in his eyes was all but gone. He made an effort to smile when he saw Jack carrying Sandy, and offered to take him for Jack. Gladly- and feeling guilty for the his gladness- Jack gave Sandy to North, noticing how North automatically assumed the same position Jack had attempted, only smoothly and with more expertise. Jack wondered if North had done this before; had North had children? It seemed an important question, yet equally unimportant.

Kozmotis' arrival had turned the already muddied waters into a howling tsunami that crashed against the walls of Jack's mind, leaving him teetering between mindless confusion and absolute surety. Kozmotis was good, but he was also the man Pitch  _was,_ and Pitch was certainly  _bad._ Sandy was sick, but he seemed to get both better and worse when he saw Kozmotis, who had adamantly insisted he was  _not_ Pitch when Jack had met him (to the point of laboriously teaching him to say his name) yet had allowed Sandy to whisper to him as if he was Pitch- and that was only one more brain-aching complexity to add to the pile. Jack had been certain he had saw Sandy mouthing  _I'm sorry_ but what on earth did Sandy have to apologise to Pitch for? Coming back to life and ruining his plan to overtake the world in fear and darkness?

_"Kan pyitsh...kan ssanderrsson,"_ Kozmotis' words were soft in his memory.  _"If there is no Pitch, there can be no Sandy?"_

It was obvious that dreamweaver and nightmare king had a closer bond than the Guardians had ever known. Jack looked to the silent, straight back of Kozmotis and thought,  _were you that secret? Is it your fault Sandy's like this and Pitch is dead?_ He didn't want to think that way. He liked Kozmotis; Jack didn't want him to be the cause of the sickness of one of his greatest friends.

Jack scrubbed a hand through his hair tiredly. He felt exhausted. The early morning start and restless night had left him with barely any sleep to fall back on. The emotional events of the day didn't help. He really just wanted to find a nice snowbank and curl up in it. Or maybe against Kozmotis, if the soldier would let him. He smirked mischievously. He bet Kozmotis would, and if not, Jack would just flop on him anyway. Jack found his utter chilliness rather pleasant. The armor was uncomfortable, Jack bet, though. He wondered if he could get Kozmotis to take it off.

He felt a slight curl of frost over his cheeks as he realised he would be basically be asking the spirit he had met  _this morning_ to strip off and sleep with him.  _Seriously, Jack?_ he demanded to himself,  _After the incident when all the Guardians thought you and Tooth were doing it because you offered to let her see your teeth when she wanted?_

"I'm too friendly for my own good," Jack muttered.

North gave him an odd look. Jack gave him his best innocent smile, but if anything that only made North's suspicions strengthen.

_I'm supposed to be in a serious situation- Sandy could be dying,_ Jack reminded himself sternly, controlling his immediate reaction to trauma by laughing it off.

He sighed. If Kozmotis did turn out to be not as good as Jack hoped he was, it would probably be better not to foster too much care for him. Jack really hoped he wasn't some trick of Pitch's, a last plague of the Nightmare King beyond the grave. Speaking of...

"Where's he going?" Bunny demanded to no one, as obviously the ghost wasn't listening to the Pooka's objections, but Jack had a sinking feeling that he knew exactly where Kozmotis was going.

Straight to Pitch's- and if North's hurried story about possession and fearlings had been accurate- his own body, curled up like a hideous spider on North's workbench. None of the Guardians had dared to enter the room after Sandy had fallen ill and North had locked the doors, telling the yetis and elves to stay away, fearing fearling corruption could take place, or that Pitch's body was releasing a miasma.

_God._ Jack shuddered, remembering Pitch's body- heavy and rigid in his arms, those disgusting shadows squirming hungrily under the surface,  _Kozmotis had to live with that inside of him for all those years..._ No wonder the poor ghost wept. Jack would probably still be crying with relief from being freed from his prison.

They descended to the level upon which North's workshop was located, knowing that Kozmotis had already beaten them there.

"What's he doing?" Tooth asked nervously, seeing the locked office door.

"Maybe he's releasing the fearlings," Bunny suggested, his paws going to his boomerangs. North glanced down at Sandy, sweating silently in his sleep, a little frown on his face and a grave look settled over him.

"Perhaps he is," he said heavily, "But I am not thinking we have choice. We must trust Kozmotis and hope, Bunny. I am thinking he is good. I feel it," seriously, without an glint of humour in his eyes, "in my belly."

"So do I," Jack broke in quietly, meeting Bunny's stare challengingly with his own eyes. "Kozmotis..." he struggled for words. "You didn't see him when I met him. He..."  _was like me_ "...was alone."  _and so afraid._ "He..." he trailed off, unable to express the truth of his words, looking desperately to Tooth, who gave him a helpless look.

"I don't know, Jack," she said. "I want to trust him- of course I do! And he's- well, he's the Golden General, isn't he? Lord High of the Constellations and all that?"

Jack winced. Kozmotis hadn't seemed like a lord. He had looked more like a sad, desperate and lonely man in search of something he had lost.

"He was Pitch Black," Bunny interjected, "and you all seem to be forgettin' that. Sure I want to think he's a nice bloke an' all, but mate," he looked directly to Jack, "you can't trust 'im. There's no tellin' what he's capable of."

"He  _wasn't,"_ Jack burst out passionately, "You don't  _understand-_ he's not-!"

"Look," said Bunny with uncharacteristic gentleness, "Jack. I know you like him, but the fact is, until his word's deadset you just can't pretend he ain't a danger."

Gritting his teeth, Jack averted his eyes. He felt angry and tired, and didn't really know why he was defending Kozmotis. He had no more reason to trust the mysterious soldier than the rest of the Guardians but if Jack didn't, who else would? What if the Guardians had judged  _him_ on the guilty until proven innocent rule? He had done more than his share of mischief. And fair enough- potentially being the Nightmare King Pitch Black was a bit more severe than stealing a loaf of bread or a new hoodie, but in essence, it remained the same. Besides, the memory of Kozmotis' smile made Jack's stomach do strange things; he had seen it once, and already wanted to make him smile again.

He ruffled his hair. Why was life as a Guardian so complicated? He looked at Sandy and felt as if his heart had dropped out of his chest from guilt. Jack would take all the complications in the world if it meant that Sandy would get better again. He longed for the sunny Sandman's cheerful smile that always lightened Jack's center and put him in an inexplicably good mood, but even more than Sandy's natural ability to put people at ease- an ability sorely missed, Jack thought wryly, glancing at Bunny bristling- he was Jack's best friend in the Guardians. He never judged, never wished a bad thing upon anybody, and yet, Jack thought somewhat hysterically, it was  _always_ him to whom the bad things happened.

North unlocked the door and pushed it open. Immediately out poured a hideous stench, and Jack gagged, pressing his sleeve to his mouth in an attempt to filter the smell. It hit the Guardians like a wall, knocking Tooth to her feet and making Bunny with his sensitive nose double over and retch. It was a cloying, heavy stench, unbearably repugnant, like the scent of cheap perfume mixed with rotting vegetables. It was like nothing Jack had ever smelled before and he felt his stomach heave. He choked on his vomit, trying to force it back down his throat, only for North to sympathetically clap his back and offer him a bowl.

North was the only one unaffected. Bunny was pale and shaking, clearly transfixed by a memory, and Tooth was rubbing his shoulder comfortingly, her face pale green with nausea. Sandy in North's arms was shaken to wakefulness, his feverish eyes flying open and his little face screwing into one of intense disgust. He did not appear to be about to throw up, and in fact looked remarkably present, though there was still an unmistakable glaze in his eyes. The big Russian waited for them to regain their composure before allowing them to enter.

Once he had, Jack almost turned right back around. He grabbed North's bowl and threw up until there was nothing left but bile and his eyes were streaming with tears. He had never seen anything so simultaneously revolting and horrifically fascinating at the same time.

Pitch's body, the blanket fallen around his waist, had become hideously distorted- the body was swollen and bloated, black like bruised grapes, the tongue bulging out of his mouth and forcing the rigid jaw apart like a thick dark slug, the eyes bulging out of their sockets, the opaque yellowish colour of Pitch's pupils giving them the appearance of giant blisters. The corpse had relaxed from the rigid, spiderlike position it had been fixed in, flopping like a disgusting doll over the desk. His stomach, chest and neck had turned dark blue, like a bruise, apart from on his tight, indrawn abdomen, where it had turned a poisonous green. Underneath the stretched skin, Jack could see the shadows, sluggish and slow, like worms. The Fearlings were still caged inside- but for how much longer?

At his head, Kozmotis stood, regarding the dead body with a dispassionate interest. He lifted his scythe, perhaps intending to swing it down upon the body, but then appeared to reconsider and slammed it into the ground instead. He held out his palms over the corpse's chest and a wreath of silver poppies coalesced between them, which he laid gently upon Pitch's chest. Then he sat crosslegged at Pitch's head and lifted it into his lap, brushing a lock of limp black hair off the body's face, and pressed his long silvery fingers against Pitch's temples. Kozmotis bowed his head with a frown of concentration, tears dripping off his sharp chin onto Pitch's wasted cheeks, making it appear as if the body was crying.

Jack blinked in surprise, disquieted. Kozmotis didn't have any trouble touching the dead body at all, but he hadn't been able to touch Jamie, Sandy or North. Why could he touch Jack?

A stir of movement at Jack's side distracted him and he glanced over to see Bunny entering the room, still looking nauseous. Jack hesitated, half wondering if perhaps he should go and stand beside Kozmotis- offer some solidarity. It couldn't be easy, seeing his own dead body, but Kozmotis seemed entirely unbothered.

Tooth's gasp alerted Jack, and he glanced up just in time to see a silver coloration sweep out from Kozmotis' fingers where they touched Pitch's temples, restoring the flesh until it was the twin of the ghost above it, thin pale scars and all. Jack gaped, surprised and disgusted as the rotting body deflated, the swollen tongue turning pencil-lead grey before shrinking to a normal size and disappearing inside the mouth. Kozmotis was frowning intently, clearly concentrating hard as he uncovered his own body underneath the corruption of Pitch Black. The silver spread inside his veins, appearing as a glowing spiderweb for a brief moment before it seeped into the dead flesh, spots of grey appearing and instantly fading as the panicking shadows fought against the renewal of the prison.

Once Kozmotis was finished, the body had been transformed from Pitch Black's corpse after four or five days of decomposition to Kozmotis Pitchiner's, still fresh and glowing with an unearthly silver light that kept the shadows trapped within at bay. Physically, it remained the same, but phantom scars appeared matching Kozmotis' own, including, to Jack's surprise, dark, ugly brands on his chest, in the shape of bizarre, arcane symbols.

Kozmotis laid the head back against the desk and rose silently. He traced the symbols on the corpse's chest with an odd look on his face Jack couldn't quite place, anger, perhaps, a terrible sadness, hatred, it could have been all three or none at all.

"Jack," said North flatly, and Jack started at his name being called. North dumped Sandy into his arms, Jack hurriedly taking hold of the dreamweaver, whose little hands tugged into his hoodie. Sandy was looking at the body, tears running silently down his cheeks. Jack patted his back awkwardly as Sandy buried his face in Jack's shoulder, his body shaking with the force of his soundless sobs.

North approached the body on the table, bending to examine the symbols carved into the dead flesh closely. He glanced up at Kozmotis with a grave look on his face. The soldier's countenance was equally solemn, but when North made eye contact, he tilted his head and asked a question in his rippling language, pointing at the symbols in a manner which made the question obvious.  _What do they mean?_

Sighing, the big Russian straightened, his eyes falling on Sandy. "I have seen these before, long ago. It was a dark place- a tomb, in which dwelled a horrible curse." He was silent for a moment. "I did not learn their meanings for many years, but I know them now."

"What do they mean?" Tooth asked, her eyes still drawn to the body with an expression of horror.

Bunny stepped forward and answered instead of North, his ears pressed almost flat against his skull and his green eyes dull and sad with remembered sorrow. "Symbols of undeath..."

"Da," said North, looking surprised at Bunny's knowledge. "How are you knowing this, old friend?"

"They were once in my family's Warren," said Bunny in a clipped tone, "Magical symbols that preserve life, prevent death. It helped our plants flourish." He shook his head. "These have been twisted- they are evil."

"Did you know about this?" Jack asked Kozmotis, realising the ghost had drifted next to him, a troubled look on his cold face. The Grey Soldier met Jack's gaze, his eyes still shimmering with tears, and shook his head slowly. Jack's eyes widened, and he glanced at the body again. The scars had been cut very deeply- there was no way Kozmotis wouldn't have known about it, even if he had been unconscious during the... _ministration..._ he would have certainly noticed it when he had woken up.

Sandy twisted in Jack's arms, and he looked down at the little man with confusion. Sandy looked alien, his face contorted into a truly terrifying grimace of sheer hate, his golden eyes burning, lips drawn back to show his teeth.

"Sandy?" Jack said, drawing the attention of the other Guardians, who followed his line of sight and saw the single moonbeam lancing through the window and boldly illuminating the body on the table. Out of the corner of his eye, Jack saw Kozmotis draw back.

"Manny!" shouted North. "Old friend! Were you knowing about this?" He gestured down at the body, with the damning evidence scrawled across it's chest.

The moonbeam wavered, then formed laboriously into a glowing white cross.  _No_ _._

A vibration went through Sandy's body, and Jack almost dropped the little dreamweaver when he realised the gentle Sandman was  _growling,_ as if he were nothing more than a wild animal.

The Man in the Moon was clearly not done, though, as the moonbeam began to shine a different shape onto the tabletop. It was of some sort of tower nestled between two mountains. The moonbeam even added a wheeling bird overhead.

"The Lunar Lamadary?" guessed Tooth, ignoring Jack's look of bewilderment.

"He wants to talk to us directly?" asked Bunny, sounding worried. He jabbed his thumb at Kozmotis. "What has he gotten us into?"

The moon's strength was spent, and the hazy picture dissolved into nothing. Jack stared up at the pale image of the moon. What did he know? How could he talk to the Guardians directly? Why did Sandy seem to suddenly hate the moon? What did those symbols mean, and who had put them there? Why didn't Kozmotis know how they had got there? Why could Kozmotis touch dead bodies and Jack but nothing else? Where did Kozmotis even  _come from?_ Had he really been the one to make Sandy sick? What the hell was the Lunar Lamadary?

Sandy was still glaring at the moon. Jack felt an icy cold hand settle on his shoulder and looked over to see Kozmotis giving him a wry sort of smile through his tears. He shrugged slowly, making certain Jack caught the gesture, and despite the serious situation, Jack felt a laugh bubble up inside of him.

At least someone was as confused as he was.


	10. Suiting Up

"What's the Lunar Lamadary?" Jack tried for the fourth time, to no avail. The Man in the Moon's message had provoked an instant argument between the three Guardians in the know, completely excluding their fourth and fifth members. Not that Sandy would have been much help anyway; he was curled up next to Jack, his head resting on the frost boy's lap, holding his hands over his ears and mouthing soundlessly to himself.

Jack sighed in frustration and leaned against the wall. He was slumped on the floor of the dais overlooking the globe of belief. Unanimously, they'd relocated from the workroom containing Pitch's body. Whatever Kozmotis had done had reversed the signs of decay and preserved the body, according to a rapid translation of Kozmotis' soft comments, but the previous stench still lingered heavily.

Said ghost was hovering somewhat awkwardly in the corner, fiddling with his scythe and looking uncomfortable. As Jack observed him, Kozmotis caught his eyes. Jack motioned him over with an apologetic gesture towards Sandy. He didn't want to have to move the little guy; it had taken Sandy a lot of wriggling around on Jack's lap before he had found a position in which he was content.

Kozmotis blinked rapidly, his cheeks tinting just a hint more silver. He looked surprised at Jack's silent offer, but pleased, judging by the quick nod he gave. It took one long stride, and then the tall soldier was standing beside Jack, somehow having crossed the entire room without taking more than one step. Jack gave him a tired smile. It still amazed him how Kozmotis seemed exempt from normal laws. Perhaps it was because he was dead.

Uncertainly Kozmotis jammed his scythe into the wood and hunkered down beside Jack, his grey eyes catching Jack's and asking silently for permission. Jack only sighed and yanked Kozmotis' arm, forcibly pulling the soldier to the floor. Dipping straight through the floor for a moment, Kozmotis steadied himself sheepishly, his blush now a dark grey and making Jack grin despite his exhaustion. The lanky ghost surveyed Jack's position- leaning against the wall with his legs loosely bent and staff point resting between his feet, with the crook over his shoulder- before attempting to imitate it as if he was not quite certain how to sit. Perhaps he had forgotten, Jack didn't think there was much call for chairs when he went straight through them.

Once he was settled, he shyly caught one of Jack's hands where it rested on his staff and linked their fingers, their palms sliding together loosely. Jack let him, staring at the ghostly, silvery pale long fingers entwined with his own nail-bitten human ones, their colour almost normal looking next to Kozmotis'. He chanced a glance at Kozmotis out of the corner of his eye. The soldier was watching the argument determinedly, his sharp eyes tracking the guardians, but when Jack experimentally rubbed his thumb over his knuckle, Kozmotis swallowed, his Adam's apple bobbing in his throat. Kozmotis' skin was pleasantly cold, like the first biting taste of too-cold ice cream jarring right into the gums. With Sandy's head against his leg like a burning brand sending heat through his body, Kozmotis was a very welcome contrast.

Yawning, Jack closed his eyes in a slow blink. He wished he could discreetly find a snowbank somewhere.

Kozmotis tugged his hand lightly to get his attention.

" _Shyak?"_ He looked concerned, his head tilted slightly like a curious bird.

Jack yawned again. "Just tired," he said quietly, resting his head against the wall behind him.

_"Pahdonne, Shyak."_ There was a glint of humour in Kozmotis' eyes as he gestured at Sandy, who, to Jack's reluctant amusement, had fallen asleep with his thumb in his mouth. If Jack hadn't seen Sandy toss the Boogeyman around like a sack of flour with a pair of  _whips_ no less he would have thought the diminutive Sandman little more than a sleepy child.  _"Konne-virr pahdonne, Shyak kaass pahdonne ssehv."_

Jack blinked at him tiredly, too exhausted to parse through his words. "I'm assuming that means 'sleep'?"

Kozmotis nodded fondly, and hesitated, a war flickering in his grey eyes. To his credit, Jack only squeaked a little in surprise when the soldier sidled awkwardly closer, wrapping a protective arm around Jack's waist and providing his armoured shoulder to pillow Jack's head. Jack held still, feeling frost curl over his cheeks in a furious blush as Kozmotis avoided his eyes, clearly embarrassed.

The armour was not the most comfortable of pillows, but Jack had three centuries of experience sleeping anywhere. He pressed close to the soldier's side, smiling sleepily as Kozmotis stroked his hair comfortingly, humming a low, soft song. He only meant to close his eyes for perhaps a second, maybe a minute, but Jack swore Kozmotis' song had some magic effect and before he knew it, Jack fell headlong into a deep, soothing sleep.

* * *

"Someone has to stay with Sandy," Tooth was saying anxiously, "He's too sick to go."  _And guard the body,_ her eyes said, though she didn't state it out loud. The fairy's feathers were fluttering, a clear sign of her worry, and the baby teeth around her darted impatiently, their high piping voices chittering constantly in a language only Tooth knew.

"Bunny said he would take Sandy," North assured her, dictating items they would need on the trip to a yeti, "He says the Warren would be best, and I am thinking leaving Pitch's body unguarded at Pole is not wise." Bunny had left almost immediately to go prepare the Warren for his guest-convalescent-and-corpse.

North thought about what could happen if an elf got possessed and had to shudder. At least Pitch Black had just been a man underneath all the shadows and creepiness- but the pure destructive capability of elves, coupled with shadow powers...it didn't bear thinking about.

"What about Kozmotis?" Tooth asked, smoothing her crest.

"He is coming with us," said North firmly. "Best place to keep an eye on him is right beside us, da?" He glanced over Tooth's shoulder and let out a booming laugh. "Though, Toothy, I am not thinking he is needing watching. Look."

The other Guardian followed North's finger and saw Jack, Kozmotis and Sandy all curled up against the wall, fast asleep. Sandy was half-in Jack's lap, who was leaning against Kozmotis, whose head had dropped into Jack's hair. Above them the scythe towered, a stern presence. It was a rather adorable scene- despite the quivering nightmares of the Sandman, the washed out replica of Pitch Black dressed in old armour from ages long past, and the exhaustion and worry in Jack's sleeping face.

"Leave them, North," said Tooth softly, "They look so peaceful." The fairy removed a blanket from Sandy's room close by and gently laid it over the sleeping forms, only for the blanket to fall right through Kozmotis. It didn't seem right to leave the ghost with half a blanket sticking through his torso, so she wrapped the excess around Sandy and Jack.

"Come on." She ushered the other Guardian from the room quietly, glancing over her shoulder as she did so with a small smile. There were preparations to be made for the trip to the Himalayas and the monks who followed the moon there, and Bunny would need help creating somewhere to keep Sandy and Pitch. No doubt it was only going to get worse...but for the first time, Tooth dared to hope it may also get better, eventually.

No sooner had she closed the door when Bunny loped up from around the corner, shaking snow from his fur and looking irritable. "We're all set," the Pooka declared gruffly, "Just gotta move it there and run back to fetch Sandy." Bunny didn't look pleased to have to deal with Pitch's corpse in his life-giving Warren, but it was a necessary evil.

Hopefully, the Man in the Moon would have final answers on how to get Pitch back to his original state and cure Sandy, Tooth thought. She didn't want to think about what would happen with all the captive shadows once the body decayed. They would almost certainly escape from their cage and possess the nearest possible vessel. She didn't know what the symbols carved into Kozmotis' chest meant, or what his magic had really done, but she didn't think it was permanent enough to stop the fearlings from escaping a vessel they didn't want to be in.

"I will send two yetis to move body," North told Bunny, and the grumpy Pooka nodded shortly before disappearing into the room briefly, reappearing with Sandy cradled uncharacteristically gently in his arms.

Bunny looked down at the unconscious dreamweaver for a moment, pain in his eyes. Tooth rested a hand on his shoulder. It never got easier; seeing their oldest and gentlest friend so broken. Tooth simultaneously hoped one day it would stop hurting so much to see the pain on Sandy's face, and begged whatever god was up there that she wouldn't have to get used to that sight.

Bunny cleared his throat, pulling away from Tooth with a short jerk of the chin. "Good luck up there," he said, pinning Tooth seriously with his eyes.

"Be careful," Tooth responded. She pressed a hesitant kiss to Sandy's forehead and looked at Bunny with eyes swimming with tears. "...he doesn't always recognise us."

Bunny's expression sobered further and he opened his mouth as if he was about to say something, stopped, and glanced down at Tooth's wrist, which was wrapped in a bandage extending up to her elbow, hiding the ugly burn marks and raw flesh underneath. Tooth had learned the hard way to fear a delirious star's confusion. Only Bunny had been present, able to administer what healing he could- North had noticed the bandage but had not asked, his blue eyes grave. Tooth supposed North's life as a bandit had left him accustomed enough to the dangers of infection and fever.

The Tooth Fairy carefully stroked a lock of damp golden hair off Sandy's burning forehead, wincing at the heat radiating from him. "Don't worry," she told the sleeping star, "It will be fine, the Man in the Moon will know how to make you better." She swallowed past the lump in her throat, remembering the bright eyed, cheeky Sandman of old.  _I promise._

She met eyes with Bunny too and said, not quite pulling off a joking tone, "Look after yourself too, Bunny, we don't need to lose another Guardian." The joke fell horribly flat, and she winced, but Bunny only nodded understandingly and tapped his foot, opening up a tunnel and leaving for his Warren.

"Baby Tooth, I'm putting you in charge for a while," Tooth told the minifairy seriously, and Baby Tooth chirped back an affirmative.

"Toothy?" North's head popped up from around a door, a big grin on his face. "I am thinking you will like this!"

Tooth sighed and rolled her eyes, but let North drag her along like an excited child as he brought her down to the room where Tooth had asked him to store her swords. She had given up keeping them at Punjam Hy Loo after countless times she had been called to the Pole anyway and later had to return to collect them. She hadn't carried them for many centuries, trusting in her agility and razor-sharp wings to keep herself safe, as well as the relative safety of being a Guardian. Few spirits would actually bother to confront a Guardian- aside from Pitch- largely due to their reputations for being able to defeat the Nightmare King, who was looked upon with a mixture of terror and amusement by the spirit world. But now with Pitch unable to carry out his duties, and the Sandman out of action, unrest was spreading.

The last thing the Guardians needed was news of either spirit's infirmity reaching a powerful spirit who then decided to try and catch the Guardians unprepared.

"Swords," said North, pointing to a familiar cloth-wrapped bundle placed on a low table in the store room.

Tooth smiled and unwrapped her swords carefully, hefting the blades in her hands. Holding them felt good, right, as if she had slotted back a piece of the old Toothiana she had preferred to forget in her duties as a Guardian, immersing herself in the sweet magic of the Tooth Fairy. She experimentally slashed them through the air, wincing at her own form. She was a bit rusty.

"Toothy, look at this!" North called for her attention, and Tooth glanced up, and then her mouth dropped open.

North was standing proudly next to a scuffed leather mannikin. There was a big beam on his face and his eyes were sparkling. But Tooth wasn't looking at North.

Her gaze was transfixed by the armour- perfectly crafted to fit her, waiting patiently on the armour stand. The pieces were made out of leather, flexible enough for her not to lose any of her agility, but offering better protection than her feathers. They were embossed with strange sigils and had been dyed a deep forest green, contrasting pleasantly with her feathers. There were shoulder pieces and protection for both arms, ending in a leaf-shape over the backs of her hands. A leather cuirass embroidered with green and yellow thread was next, fitting tightly to her body, with careful wing slits allowing her full range of movement. A pleated leather skirt protected her hips and thighs without hindering her legs, and there were even greaves and boots that hugged her calves and feet. Around her waist she tied a sash over which she attached her sword belt.

Once it was all on, Tooth surveyed herself in the mirror North had provided. She looked once more like a warrior queen.

"Thank you," she said quietly, hardly recognising herself. "Do you think I'll need it?"

"All I am saying is once I did not think Pitch Black could be killed," said North gravely. "But I am hoping not ever, Toothy. Is good to have it, no?"

"Thank you," she repeated, and touched one of the symbols embossed into the armour. "What do these mean?"

"Ah," said North awkwardly, with a laugh, "I do not know. Sandy showed me before he took ill- he said symbols of protection and strength, from Golden Age." North shrugged. "I have seen same on Kozmotis armour, da?"

"You have?" said Tooth, surprised, glancing again at the symbols. Now North mentioned it, the vinelike patterns were familiar. She caught sight of another mannikin hiding behind a dust sheet and turned to North, raising an eyebrow and grinning. "How many of these did you make?"

North scratched his belly in embarrassment. "One back-up set for you Toothy, and one for each of us and back up, own type." He paused, looking disappointed with himself. "I did not have time to make Jack his own, I had to adapt some of Nightlight's old armour." He frowned, his bushy brows pulling together, and Tooth had to laugh, because no doubt North's 'adaption' was reinventing the entire piece.

"Let's see yours, then," Tooth said, grinning, and North's answering smile was enough to light up thirteen Christmas trees.

* * *

Kozmotis opened his eyes as soon as he heard the door open, his offhanded grip on the scythe tightening until he recognised the forms of Tooth and North and deemed them not a threat to himself or Jack. The soldier watched, raising an eyebrow in surprise at their attire.

Tooth blushed slightly at his look, her crest lifting. She looked like a true warrior, thought Kozmotis approvingly, and there was a good choice of protective runes embossed into her armour. North, beside her, wore a hauberk underneath his great red coat and had replaced his hat with a fur-lined helm. At his side hung his two sabers, and in his arms was a bundle. They looked fit for battle, thought Kozmotis. He could stand beside them, that was for certain, but...

He looked down at the sleeping winter boy nestled into his side and squeezed his shoulder, shaking him lightly. He felt protective towards Jack, warm in ways he hadn't for many, many years. Jack was the first to reach out to Kozmotis, had struggled through all their language barriers and tried to help Kozmotis despite everything he had to suspect him.

Jack stirred, with a yawn, and Kozmotis smiled sadly. " _Shyak,"_ he called insistently, and Jack groaned.

"Fi-more...mins..." he said blurrily, and Kozmotis, having not caught a single ounce of meaning, shook him again, more forcefully.

_"Shyak!"_

Jack started awake, blinking sheepishly at Kozmotis. He started to speak but was interrupted by a huge yawn. Kozmotis was smiling through his tears, and Jack only realised he was staring at the soldier when a discreet cough alerted him to the presence of others in the room.

Jumping, Jack scrambled to his feet, an embarrassed flush full force on his cheeks. North and Tooth were watching him with very knowing glints in their eyes, and Jack sputtered helplessly for a moment, seeing rather than hearing the soundless ghost rise to a standing position beside him, taking up his scythe. Suddenly, Jack noticed what was different about Tooth and gaped.

"Wow," he said intelligently. "Uh. Wow."

A sudden noise caught Jack's attention, a noise low like the thunder of stones rubbing together, soft like the music of stars. He glanced over, and saw to his shock Kozmotis was laughing, quietly, his hand covering his smile and though tears were still welling up in his eyes, they were not spilling down his cheeks. It was the closest to happy Jack had ever seen him, though there was still a great sadness about him. When he noticed Jack looking at him, Kozmotis blinked and stopped laughing, his cheeks sheeting with a silver flush before he cleared his throat and regained his composure.

"Here is yours," said North, thrusting the bundle in his arms, "Hurry- sleigh is waiting."

"Uh," said Jack, still taken aback at the speed of everything, and though he wouldn't admit it, slightly tongue-tied by the sound of Kozmotis' laugh, "Okay."

Tooth and North left, and Jack unwrapped the bundle, lifting out a set of dark armour decorated with black frost spikes and jagged edges that reminded him uncomfortably of Antarctica. There was even a helm, with swept back spikes to stop people grabbing Jack's head but to Jack only looked like Pitch's hair. Jack swallowed at the sight.

"I can't wear this," he told Kozmotis softly, staring down at the armour. An icy hand came to rest on his shoulder, and Jack looked into Kozmotis' comforting, but stern eyes.

"Do I have a choice?" Jack whispered bitterly, "What are we going into?"

Kozmotis smiled sadly and shrugged. His long tapered fingers gently manipulated Jack's own, helping him don the armour. Jack let Kozmotis move him. It was awkward, but Jack didn't want any part of this. When Kozmotis was done, he stepped back and smiled approvingly at Jack, his eyes comforting. Jack supposed Kozmotis understood better than anyone what it was to have to wear something that only brought back hateful memories and pretend it didn't affect him- every time he looked the wrong way in the mirror, or one of the Guardians or elves flinched a little at the sight of him, or when Sandy gasped "Pitch!".

Jack tugged at the gauntlets deprecatingly. "I look like him, don't I." It wasn't a question. Outfitted in a strange combination of Nightlight's armour and stylised frost, he looked like the terrifying and unholy love child of Pitch Black.

Kozmotis winced slightly- there was no way to lie, but then he shrugged and lightly pointed to himself with a rueful grin.  _So do I._ His grin turned wicked, and Kozmotis mimed hooking his hands into claws and pretending to 'scare' Jack.

Jack snickered. "Well, at least we can terrify the crap out of the Guardians together, what'd'you say, my friend?"

Kozmotis smiled and took Jack's hand, shaking his head disapprovingly, but it was difficult to look properly stern when Jack was grinning at him like that, all shining eyes and bright teeth, infectious humour in his eyes.

_"Stop it,"_ he told Jack, but Jack only grinned wider, pouting adorably at him.

"Come on...just one prank." How could a human's eyes get that wide?

_I'm going to regret this,_ thought Kozmotis, and nodded wearily.


	11. Arrival at the Moon

The Guardians' reactions to his new armour had been hilarious, at least. Both North and Tooth had blinked, made the connection, assumed they were the only one and commenced pretending they hadn't. Jack was having immense fun slipping in Pitchlike quotes and watching them flinch and jump. He had never thought scaring people could be this funny.

Every time he did, Kozmotis would give him a tight lipped look- one that fought off the smirk Jack could see begging to be unleashed.

Tooth was surveying the sleigh, and looking worriedly at Kozmotis. "Will you be able to keep up?" she was asking, "If we travel by snowglobe, you'll be left behind." Kozmotis sighed silently, a frown furrowing his face as he considered the problem. "I'm sorry," said Tooth fretfully. "I don't know what to do-"

"Maybe," Jack broke in, "He wants we what  _we have."_

Tooth's feathers quivered and she jerked. "Ah-"

"Maybe, he's tired of falling straight through things," Jack continued innocently. At his side, Kozmotis fell prey to a small coughing fit.

"I'll- er, ask North," Tooth said quickly, looking extremely discomforted, and the moment she turned away, Jack began sniggering behind his hand.

 _"Did you see her face?"_ he hissed, and Kozmotis elbowed him, trying to look stern and failing.  _"_ Oh come on, that was the best one yet!"

Tooth and North were embroiled in an intense discussion. To his great amusement, Jack noticed them sending him occasional worried glances. Kozmotis tugged his sleeve, a smile still twitching at his lips, and pointed at the sleigh.

" _Shyak,"_ he said, and shrugged when Jack bit his lip. Jack glanced at the pale hand resting loosely on his wrist, and then back at the sleigh. The idea, when it hit him, was like lightning and he leaped in the air with a whoop, attracting the attention of the other Guardians.

"IDEA!" Jack bellowed, just as North had done at the Tooth Palace, "Kozmotis just needs to hold onto one of us." He jumped onto the sleigh, accidentally kicking one of the controls.

"Jack!" North shouted, "Watch out!" The sleigh juddered, jerked, and went completely invisible, though Jack could still feel it underneath him. Jack guessed this was how North hid from things like the adults that couldn't see him...?

"Oops," said Jack, sheepishly. With a wicked grin, he caught Kozmotis' eyes and added, "It was  _stupid_ of me to mess with your sleigh, North! I tell you what- you can have it back."

"Ah, thank you Jack," said North, oblivious. Only Sandy had been present when Pitch had said that. And apparently Kozmotis, because the ghost was giving him that glare-fighting-off-a-smile look again.

Kozmotis really didn't think he was supposed to be supporting this. Every time Jack brought another moment up, the memory would flash before his eyes- everything dark, greyscale, hungry and threatening and hatred, Sandy a pillar of light in his way and Jack this pale beautiful lean thing with an open heart that begged to be devoured by the darkness. Kozmotis didn't think Jack really understood how much of a danger Pitch had been, what the full scale of his intentions were-  _black sand writhing under dim light and golden eyes glassy with_   _tears_ _"idsaysweetdreamsbut"-_ and the reminders were like punches to his gut. Jack didn't mean them that way, he knew, but every time he remembered what Kozmotis-who-was-Pitch had done he flinched and winced.

Kozmotis didn't remember much of what he had done as Pitch, and he was thankful. The little that he did remember was enough to make him weep, weep forever free from the torment of the darkness. He couldn't deny seeing Jack wrapped in darkness like Kozmotis-who-was-Pitch had greedily envisaged affected him, some left over guilty appreciation and a deep sickness to the core of his being.

While he had been thinking, the other Guardians had prepared the sleigh, and now Jack called to him, gesturing beside him with an open smile. Kozmotis allowed Jack to wrap his arms around his waist and placed his own over the boy's shoulders, feeling Jack nestle into him as North cracked the great whips and the ponderous reindeer, bucking, took off at a run.

He was untouched by the wind, of course, but he could see Jack's pale hair whipping against his cheeks and Tooth tucking her wings firmly against her sides, lest they get wrenched open and she pulled from the sleigh. North was shouting exuberantly with laughter, and Jack was grinning a wild, free smile, a smile that lit up his blue eyes and made them shimmer and glitter like cut sapphires embedded in wind kissed white. He pressed against Kozmotis, who in turn held onto him tightly, the insubstantial silver of his arm translucent against the blue of Jack's hoodie.

The wild sleigh ride broke out into the open air, and the sleigh jerked as the reindeer took off, their cloven hooves thundering against air as if it were solid. Kozmotis leaned fearlessly over the side and smiled. He remembered loving this, the world dropping dizzily away, and while Kozmotis would never feel the wind tugging through his hair again or know the smooth control of steering a ship he could at least have this, the stark, bleak white plains of the Pole unrolled like a map beneath them, rivers and the glint of sea like silvery tassels and the tiny brown square of the workshop jutting like a pointing finger.

"It's great, isn't it?" Jack asked him, eyes cheerful and bright and free and smile wide, so wild that Kozmotis felt his own reluctant, pale imitation tugging his lips. He wished desperately he could force his tongue to respond in the rough language Jack favored, but Kozmotis' body was set to the rhythms of the Golden Age, and like Sanderson, he had never learned how to adjust. If he ever could. Wryly, Kozmotis thought both he and Sanderson were beyond that now.

 _"Shyak,"_ was all he could say, but Jack seemed to understand and the hard mischievous brightness in his eyes softened to the giving ripple of melted lakes. Kozmotis tried for a smile, but his muscles refused to remember a shape that wasn't sadness. It was alright, though, Jack knew to smile for both of them.

"I say...Lunar Lamadary!" shouted North, and Kozmotis glanced away just in time to see him hurl something delicate into the sky, that with a crack of glass, transformed into a swirling, multi-hued vortex of colours and light.

They were headed straight for it. Kozmotis jerked-  _twisted darkness oozing out of the closet stretching reaching and Pitch Black only knew shades of monochrome and the greywhite exploded into a whirlwind of colour and brightness, white so brilliant and bright it hurt his sensitive eyes and he screamed-_ and with lurch of his stomach, they disappeared into the centre of the mass.

For half a breath, a second poised in infinity, Kozmotis' world was white, and he was weightless, and alone. Jack's arms around him disappeared and there was only the howling tunnel of brightness, something that made some part of him that remembered darkness as a comfort writhe like a bug trapped under a microscope.

He had barely an instant to open his mouth before they reappeared, and Kozmotis was screaming silently with no voice to be heard, and he had to close his mouth else the shadows would force their way in, and he was shaking and shuddering and waiting for the pain of the light to hit him.

 _"-zmotis? Kozmotis?"_ something was saying, terrified and concerned, and Kozmotis waited for the orders that wouldn't come again- he was alone?! Where were the voices in his mind, the heavy press of slick shadow, and there that was a pressure around the back of his neck and waist, holding him to a scratchy substance. He leaned desperately into it  _I'm solid I'm not going to disappear I'm real I'm here_ "Kozmotis?"

Wait- that was him wasn't it? The Moon had told him so. He tried to remember how to speak, but all that came to mind was garbled words and screams, and the memory of a name winter-bright and cracking ice against his tongue, so he said that. " _Shyak. Shyak. Shyak."_

"Yes," said the voice, sounding relieved, and the hand drew patterns on the nape of his neck. "Look at me. Open your eyes. Look at me."

Shuddering, Kozmotis became aware in increments. The ghostly body, unanchored to anything in the mortal plane, but held securely against dead flesh, the white light of the moonbeam's armour, the pull of his duty pushing him ever forward and back, ripped between two judgments. Had he been human, he might have breathed out a shaky breath, instead, Kozmotis obeyed. He was too used to following orders to ignore them now.

He opened his eyes and met the deep blue stare with his own. Pale skin. White hair. Black, black, black. He shivered.

"Are you okay?" Jack asked him, and Kozmotis blinked at him numbly. He felt tears sheeting down his cheeks and had the insane urge to laugh bitterly.

 _Okay? Okay?_ " _Shyak,"_ he said instead, and nodded gravely.

Jack let out a relieved chuckle. "You kinda flipped out a bit, there. But, look." He gestured carelessly with an uncertain smile. "We're here."

Kozmotis secured his arm tightly around Jack's waist, trying not to think too hard about the frost decorating the dark armour and a memory of  _coldanddark._ He looked over the edge of the sleigh.

If Kozmotis had been able to breathe the air, he would have noticed it's sharp and thin quality, or the deep cold, but the dead were indifferent to both. Instead, he saw great towering mountains rising on either side of them, their snowy peaks shrouded in shaggy clouds. It was a dramatic landscape of bare thrusting rock lurching jaggedly from the soft cover of white snow, ice catching and glittering, and far, far below, deep fuzzy spaces of grey that would look green were they closer. Forests.

A building was nestled between two stern, watchful mountains, a pale white building with a wide courtyard that North directed his sleigh towards. Small brown shapes steadily resolved themselves into lines of the cloaked monks of the moon, watching silently and still as the sleigh crashed down the smooth stone, the reindeer's hooves striking up sparks.

"Old friends!" North boomed, swinging down from the sleigh. "We have need of your help!"

"We know," said one monk, quickly continued by another and so forth.

"-why-"

"-you-"

"-are here-"

"-Guardians, and-"

"-General. Greetings-"

"-Welcome-"

"-to the Lamadary." As one, they all bowed at the waist, and in perfect synchronicity, gestured for the Guardians to follow them.

"This way-"

"-please he-"

"-is waiting-"

"-to speak-"

"-with you."

Jack stared and glanced at North. Tooth smiled at him reassuringly. "They're always like that," she said comfortingly, and patted his shoulder. "They're monks, of a sort. The Lunar Lamadary is a great place of peace. They are the lamas of the Moon." She looked around quietly, a sort of recognition. "This is where I met the other Guardians for the first time. I was taking one of their fallen teeth. I was a bit different then." She glanced down at her armour, and a wistful sort of smile appeared on her face. "Well, maybe not so different."

"You're going to have to tell me that story," Jack insisted, and Tooth smiled. She patted his shoulder and flew after North, who had followed the lamas without question.

Jack looked up at Kozmotis. The soldier was staring after the lamas with a distant expression, his scythe held loosely in his hand. Awkwardly, Jack caught the specter's hand. Kozmotis blinked, looked down at him with that cold, remote gaze. Jack noticed he did that- looked at Jack for an instant as if he had no idea who Jack was, before his expression cleared and his eyes warmed a degree. His slender fingers wove around Jack's, and Kozmotis strode after the others, pulling Jack after him.

They were lead into a wide courtyard, at the far end of which was set up a complex system of mirrors that reflected the image of the moon in it's surface. Jack felt his stomach clenching in nervous excitement. This was it. They were finally going to talk to the Moon directly.

However, to the Guardians' surprise, the lamas continued until they came to a pointed tower that didn't quite look normal. Perhaps it was because it was made entirely out of a silvery, pale metal the like of which had never been on earth and shaped like a rocket ship, with a pointed cone. The head lama stopped by the tower's door and unlocked it with a press of his hand.

"Go on-"

"-he is-

"-waiting for-"

"-you." They said.

Kozmotis stepped forward, something very close to longing in his eyes. One of the monks turned to him and addressed him in Kozmotis' own rippling language, and the former general nodded sharply, turning back to Jack and closing his hand gently around Jack's own.  _"Shyak,"_ he said, and tugged him into the ship. Kozmotis was hovering a little off the floor, but Jack was too kind to point it out, and allowed himself to be pulled around the tower, Kozmotis explaining things to him with breathless sentences in the language Jack couldn't understand. He humoured Kozmotis, nodding and smiling and taking care to look like he was interested as Kozmotis pointed excitedly to one bizarre looking button then another.

Tooth gave him a private grin when she saw Jack hide a yawn discreetly, and mouthed,  _"You're doing well."_ Jack shot her a half-hearted glare and feigned a noise of approval when Kozmotis tugged at his hand again, drawing his attention to a gearstick.

North was every bit as excited as Kozmotis, poking at the numerous bizarre instruments of the tower's control scheme like a child on Christmas. He looked gleeful as the lamas patiently explained how to fly the tower for the short trip to the Moon, where, Jack understood with a sudden drop in his stomach, they would meet the Man in the Moon himself, face to face. It was far more intimidating than just watching him through a reflected mirror, and Jack wondered what he would be like. Would he be big and strong, like North, or refined and mysterious like Kozmotis, a sleek polished product of a bygone Age? Would he shine like Sandy -used to, Jack remembered with a pang.

"Buckle up!" shouted North, and Tooth shrieked.

_"NICHOLAS ST NORTH I REFUSE TO GO ON A SPACECRAFT WITHOUT SEATBELTS!"_

"Uh oh," said Jack, and grabbed Kozmotis around the waist as the entire tower lurched. Kozmotis made an embarrassing noise he later denied ever came from him as Jack's unexpected weight pulled him right over until he collapsed on top of the shorter spirit. The ghost was lighter than air, and Jack didn't seem to mind Kozmotis sitting on top of him, winding his arms around Kozmotis' back and laughing breathlessly in his ear. Kozmotis' grip on his scythe thankfully had enabled him to swing it out of the way before he accidentally severed Jack's soul from his body and left him nothing more than a corpse.

Kozmotis swore as the tower lurched and then shot straight upwards. North was a madman! He'd applied the primary, secondary and tertiary thrusters all at once- the tower was going to pop out of the atmospheric shield like a cork out of a bottle and not stop going until they hit Jupiter!

 _"We're going to die! Again! Shyak!"_ Kozmotis yelled, but Jack just laughed with splintering bright ice eyes and Kozmotis suddenly understood why Pitch had been so obsessed with him.  _"You're insane!"_

"I'M TOO PRETTY TO DIE THIS WAY NORTH!" Tooth screamed, but she was laughing too, and the Guardians were certifiably insane, and the tower was  _on fire-_

North slammed on the breaks, and Kozmotis and Jack flew sideways and hit the wall with an audible crunch, Kozmotis doing his level best to not decapitate anyone on the way past. North was grinning ecstatically, and Tooth's feathers had puffed up, but both Guardians looked relatively untroubled. Jack was laughing like a loon, and Kozmotis was wondering why the Fearlings hadn't just snapped his mind a few centuries before. He shakily collected his scythe, looked at the Guardians, and declared,  _"You're all mad as starchasers."_

Jack gave him a blank look and laughed. "I have no idea what you just said but I'm assuming it's derogatory?" Kozmotis glared at him, and Jack held up his hands. "It's not my fault North is finally someone who knows how to have a little  _fun._ "

Kozmotis' glower darkened as the memory flashed before his eyes.  _Glowing-portal-now isn't this interesting?-pretty spirit has bite-we can break him-darkness-darkness-_ he shook his head quickly. He tightened his hold on his scythe and rested his forehead against the metal. Jack's hand caught his wrist and the winter boy gave him a worried look.

"We're moving and you were sliding out of the wall," he pointed out helpfully, and Kozmotis sighed in aggravation. Being dead was such a headache for spacial relations. He pulled Jack over to the window and looked out. If Kozmotis had a heart, it might have leapt into his throat.

The receding planet curved underneath them, perfectly spherical. Bunnymund's work, Kozmotis assumed. But above- the deep, velvet black that so called to him, the song of the stars and the galaxies humming in his bones. His fingers itched for a control panel, but Kozmotis Pitchiner would never sail the stars again. He gripped Jack's hand tightly, so tightly he made a half-sound of protest. Abruptly, Kozmotis loosened his hold and swallowed convulsively. Tears were running so quickly down his cheeks they were pooling in the collar of his armour. He cursed them for betraying his otherwise blank face.

"Hey," said Jack softly, reaching up tentatively to wipe away the worst of the tears. "What's wrong?"

Kozmotis rested his forehead against his scythe and stared out at the lonely, cold remains of his world dotting the sky like snuffed out candle flames. He remembered the dying the screams of all the stars, their decomposing bodies now carelessly strewn about in the night sky, remnants of a once proud civilization spanning galaxies. Jack linked their fingers, innocent Earth child, and leaned against Kozmotis' shoulder, following his gaze.

"Pretty from up here," he remarked, clearly meaning the spinning planet, but Kozmotis had no tie to that prison that had caged his wandering body for thousands of years. He spared a brief glance, remembering the dark rock and clean white buildings of the asteroid-home he'd grown up on. He had grown up on a mining colony, in and out of star skiffs before he could walk, but now he was forever barred from walking those familiar, empty and cold pathways ever again.

He released Jack's fingers briefly, ignoring the flash of hurt in the boy's eyes, to draw him against his chest in a bitterly cold approximation of a hug. Jack was easily short enough for him to rest his chin on his soft white hair glittering with ice crystals. Jack pressed his face against Kozmotis' breastplate, tightening his hug desperately and his own tears welling up in his blue eyes. Kozmotis's embrace was dead and Jack had to close his eyes to pretend he couldn't see straight through him, but it was a hug, and Jack still remembered the pain of being walked through for three centuries.

Kozmotis' eyes never wavered from the skies, and the stark reminder he had failed.

* * *

It only took a few hours to reach the Moon, but throughout the entire journey Tooth worried incessantly. Shortly after they had taken off, Jack and Kozmotis had gone to a window and, wrapped in each other's arms, stared silently out at the view. After a while, Jack's hair had frozen into long, weeping icicles from Kozmotis' unending tears. They hadn't moved.

"Do you think they're alright?" Tooth asked North privately.

The burly Russian glanced over at the pale pair. "Toothy, there is nothing we can do," he said, uncharacteristically quiet. "Am thinking- Kozmotis has lost everything, is not so easy to come to terms with, da? Jack is trying." He turned his attention back to the controls. "I have known men who are like Kozmotis, thinking they are alone in world of friendly faces. Is very sad."

"Can't we do  _anything?"_ Tooth inquired desperately. She guiltily looked away from the vigilant pair, smoothing her feathers. She felt bad for Kozmotis. Tooth understood what it was like to be completely cut off from a world that was all she had ever known, but she didn't understand and never would the horror of possession and the years Pitchiner had spent under the control of the shadows. She was equally curious and awed by Kozmotis. He was a figure stepped straight from legend, and the only one who seemed impervious was Jack. Perhaps it was because he hadn't heard the same stories of valor and courage the other Guardians had. But despite his ghostly appearance, the mystic armour, and the solemn, reserved seriousness he wore like a mourning shroud, Tooth knew there was a human heart that was hurting. She was a winged woman covered in feathers whose best friends were a dead boy, a fallen star, and a walking rabbit. Appearance dictated nothing of character.

And Tooth just wished there was some way, any way, she could help Jack shoulder the burden of understanding Kozmotis Pitchiner.

" _Nyet,_ Toothy. We can only show that we are there and hope he is accepting help. I am not thinking he will. Is very proud." North shrugged his massive shoulders. "All we can do is wait for time to heal hurts."

"It  _doesn't,"_ whispered Tooth quickly, "Time doesn't heal it, North."

North met her eyes with his own warm blue ones and a shared understanding born of centuries of friendship passed between them, and North knew she wasn't only speaking of Kozmotis. "I am knowing of this," he said in his gravelly, accented voice. "Time is not healing, but learning to live through it is learning letting go."

"How do you do that if you're dead?" Tooth asked rhetorically. North didn't reply. Tooth didn't think there was an answer, anyway.

North began punching buttons, and Tooth gripped onto her seat, closing her eyes. She hated this part. "Guys!" she shouted. "Docking now!"

"We're here?" she heard Jack ask, and then the tower lurched violently and she had to swallow down a wave of nausea. Damn North and his terrible piloting skills. If only Sandy was there, Tooth wouldn't be ready to throw up half a tonne of toothpaste and Listerine.

The tower plummeted like a javelin, having been caught in the gravitational pull of the moon. It started to spin uncontrollably, and Tooth heard crashing as the furniture in the lower levels slid around. Something icy cold nicked her cheek, and Tooth flinched. There was a hurried apology in a quick, flutelike sighs- Kozmotis must have accidentally caught her cheek with his scythe.

"JACK!" she screeched. "Hold him still before he kills someone with that thing!"

Jack laughed recklessly. "THIS IS  _AMAZING!"_

"I'm going to  _gut you!"_ she threatened.

"Calm down, Toothy! Is all under control!" North boomed.

The craft jerked and shook, but North wrestled it into some form of straight line, aiming directly for the small port on the grey-white surface of the Moon. He could make out the deep craters which formed the Man in the Moon's home and hid his habitation from the sharp telescopes of the humans below. Kozmotis closed his eyes and held Jack tightly, uttering a deep and pained groan at the mockery of space travel. If his old commander could see him now...

When they landed, it was with a thunderous  _crash_ and a deep scar across the surface of the Moon. They didn't stop skidding for another few minutes, which Kozmotis spent shaking at Jack's feet, scythe propped over Jack's shoulder and his face pressed into Jack's shin.

Finally, the tower came to a shuddering stop. The Guardians were frozen to the floor- Jack literally, Tooth and Kozmotis still whimpering from terror, and North was coming around from a blow to the head from an adventurous lamp originating from the lower levels.

"Never again," whispered Tooth, "never, ever, never again."

 _"You can't die twice,"_ Kozmotis told himself quietly.

"Hey, guys? Can someone give me a hand cracking this ice?" Jack asked.

"Not to worry Jack, breaking you out in just a minute!" North called cheerily, emerging from the side with what appeared to be a sharp axe. Jack gulped.

Kozmotis took pity, and four swift, precise strikes with his scythe, freed Jack. The white haired boy popped up with a smirk. "Sorry North, Kozmotis got there first."

Looking disappointed, North threw the ice axe casually over his shoulder, causing it to stick, vibrating, into the wood. "Come on," he said, "Manny is waiting for us!" He kindly helped a still-shaky Tooth to her feet and supported her down the winding stairs. They paused before the door of the tower, struck by a sense of solemnity.

"This is it," Jack whispered to Kozmotis. "We're finally going to meet him."

Kozmotis caught Jack's hand and ran his thumb across the back of Jack's hand soothingly. He gave Jack a brief, small smile, that weakly, Jack fought to return. And then, together, they stepped out to meet the Man in the Moon.

* * *

Sandy was shaking, alone in the dark. He was so afraid. So alone.  _Someone help me,_ he begged, but no one heard Sandy's voice, no one listened. It was too bright. The light hurt his eyes. He didn't remember when he had opened them.

_Please...please...someone make it stop._

There was green, so much green everywhere, and dizzily, Sandy fought to escape the glare of the sun peeling him open like a giant eye. Where was the darkness? Where was his darkness?

 _Sandy..._  It was a non-whisper, a blankness, a silence in the chattering noise of the green, but Sandy had lived all his life listening to the silence of twisting sand.  _Sandy...Sandy..._

 _Pitch?_ he cried, soundless and aching in the brightness,  _Pitch, Pitch, I can't find you._ Please bring my darkness back, he tried to say, but there was sand, everywhere, in his mouth and throat, choking him.

_..can't find the light, Sandy..._

_Please...please...make it stop..._


	12. Meeting Manny

The surface of the Moon was dusty whitish rock that raised puffs of powder under their feet. The grit worked it's way between Jack's toes, and he grimaced at the sensation. Everything felt light, a horrible feeling of weightlessness as if he were walking underwater, but without the pressure. It felt as if he would simply float away without a thought. His magic felt stifled and disconnected, cut off from the warmth and vibrancy of Earth, that Jack as a nature spirit was very attuned to. There was no air to breathe, and although the other Guardians appeared to have no difficulty talking without breath, Jack was struggling to hold onto calm. The inability to breathe reminded him harshly of drowning, and the great vastness of black overhead only worsened the comparison. It was dead silent.

The only thing grounding him was Kozmotis' icy cold hand in his, and his thumb soothingly running across the back of Jack's hand every now and then, a quiet and discreet comfort. The ghost looked unaffected by the change of gravity and atmosphere. Jack wondered if he had been able to feel the difference from Earth at all.

The complex sprawled ahead of them, low white buildings rising solemnly from the cratered landscape. This was the Man in the Moon's home. Jack felt uneasy trepidation welling up inside of him. It was too late to turn back now.

There was movement from the complex, and Jack watched a smooth section of wall suddenly seem to swing in, forming a window, out of which a shiny bald head poked. The Man in the Moon peered anxiously out the window at his visitors. He dashed to the door, throwing it wide and babbling instructions at the cheery moonmice thronging at his feet. "Welcome! Welcome!" he called distractedly to the Guardians, dismissing a moonbot that trundled up to him with a tray, upon which was a thick pair of spectacles. "Oh- come in, come in! Ever so sorry about the t-tower! It must have been simply f-frightful!" He mopped his pale round face with a sunshine yellow handkerchief.

The Man in the Moon was a short man, shorter than Jack, and portly, dressed in a dusty pale yellow suit with a white robe thrown carelessly over the top and a polka dotted tie brighter than Sandy's dreamsand. He had small eyes, nervous but kind, that darted about as if he couldn't bear to look at them for too long. He was fidgety, wringing his hands shakily and constantly reaching for his handkerchief to wipe his face of sweat.

Jack stared at him.  _This_ was the Man in the Moon? A fat old man with an inability to look anyone in the eye and rumpled suit? He was so obviously ordinary that Jack, friends with giant talking rabbits, bandit kings, fallen star pilots and warrior queens, was disappointed. He was nothing like he had expected him to be.

"Man in Moon!" shouted North, and strode forward to clap the Man in the Moon on the shoulder, making him stumble and back away with a quick, convulsive swallow. He offered a quick, almost frantic smile.

"N-Nicholas! L-Looking well! And m-my dear T-Toothiana!" He turned to Jack with a too-wide, fumbling beam. "And J-Jack! Of c-course! S-Simply w-wonderful to meet you! Face to f-face!" He gave a nervous titter. "A-after all these years!"

"Yes," said Jack uncertainly, glancing to Kozmotis for support. The ghost was simply staring at the Man in the Moon with a peculiar expression on his face- somewhere between bitter amusement and pity. Jack frowned slightly. The Man in the Moon was pointedly avoiding looking at Kozmotis as a mumbled out a stuttering and rather meek, "G-Gener-ral P-Pitch-chin-ner."

Kozmotis went to one knee and bowed his head, twisting his unoccupied hand over his sternum, touching his thumb to his third finger in what Jack assumed was a gesture of respect. " _vellethzarehk._ _zar-oksh-lunanoff. aururr-malakkan-kozsmotiss-oksh-pyitchshiner."_ He dipped his head further, and added in a truly pained tone,  _"poss-ehk fraan geh?"_

Jack had heard Kozmotis speak often enough that he recognised his barely imperceptible pauses between words, although he was just as clueless to their meaning. He guessed  _"aururr-kozsmotiss-oksh-pyitchshiner"_ was Kozmotis' method of introducing himself, as he had done the same when he had met Jack and later the Guardians, and he recognised " _vellethzarehk",_ from when Kozmotis had first spoken to Bunny. Was it some sort of greeting?

As one, the Guardians looked to the Man in the Moon for a translation, who looked doubly nervous to be so put on the spot. "Er-er," he stammered. "Um-  _luna...gath...ehk?"_ he tried, and Kozmotis almost bowed so low his forehead touched the dust. He didn't move, and the Man in the Moon looked just as confused as they were. "Y-you c-can g-get up," he said, and Kozmotis gave him such a betrayed look that the Man in the Moon winced and stumbled away, mopping his forehead. "S-s-sorry! I-I c-can't unders-stand y-you!"

Kozmotis rose with a face like stone. Tears streaked down his cheeks and he uttered a single, soft sentence in Constellation that whilst no one understood, it was barbed enough that it made Jack flinch.  _"ehkthakkanperre."_ Kozmotis' lips twisted into a bitter smile as he twisted his hand into another honorific gesture. Kozmotis' soured attitude cast a deep pall of awkwardness over the group, and the Man in the Moon jerked into action, ushering them inside with waving hands whilst being extraordinarily cautious not to touch them.

Inside the palace it was stiflingly clean and clinical white, in a manner that reminded Jack of hospital waiting rooms, but the floor was completely covered in scraps of popped balloons in all manner of garish colours. Plastic strings hung from the walls in messy strands like an unfinished spider's web, and moonmice scattering away from their footsteps with alarmed squeaks. Bizarre looking armoured robots peered curiously around from corners and slipped away with a whirring chirrup of robotic whistles and clicks if Jack dared to look at them too long.

"This way!" said the Man in the Moon cheerfully, "Fred, bring us some lightwater and a scone or two?" The robot he had addressed clicked an assent and disappeared down a side hall as the Man in the Moon lead the Guardians in a wide, domed room, in the center of which was mounted a massive telescope.

Balloons drifted around the ceiling in every shade, and there were several chaises- all white- set down from the dais, surrounding a small coffee table upon which was set a mysterious array of whirring brass instruments. On the other side of the room there was a giant white scales, with several different hands, containing different coloured balls. With a sharp shock, Jack noticed that one of the balls had fallen off the scales, a dark one that writhed with shadow, and cracked neatly down the middle. He swallowed and looked to it's balancing twin, one that swirled with golden sand. The golden ball was tipping towards the floor as if it was about to fall.

Fred the robot returned with a tray bearing a pitcher of glowing water and several glasses. He offered the Guardians some, and the others quickly assented.

"Lightwater is very nice," Tooth explained, taking her own glass with relish.

Jack sipped his and gasped with shock. It felt like cold fire lighting his mouth up and electricity charging down his nerves, fizzy like lemonade but somehow so much more. The glass was so cold beads of condensation welled and ran down it, freezing Jack's fingers to the glass. Awkwardly, he tried to detach his hands, but they had frozen fast, leaving him unable to put the glass down.

The Man in the Moon took several fortifying gulps of his own water. "S-S-So," he said, quietly, avoiding their eyes, "I s-suppose you know w-why you are h-here."

"Can you help us, old friend?" asked North, leaning forward.

The Man in the Moon fidgeted and muttered something too quietly for any of the others to make out, but Jack, sitting closest to him, heard him just fine. " _Well,_ not exactly."

"Not exactly?" Jack repeated, "What do you mean, not exactly? You know how to cure Sandy, right?"

The Man in the Moon was silent.

"Manny?" whispered Tooth. "You can- you can cure him?"

"There's n-not much recovery you  _can_ do from d-death," the Man in the Moon said a little crossly, "I d-don't quite know what you expect me to do- wave a magic wand and bring Sanderson's shadow back?"

"What?" said Jack numbly. All this way- everything they had done- the Man in the Moon was their last hope, and he was refusing to help them? "No- you have to- you can't..."

"It's such a s-shame," said the Man in the Moon briskly, "Sanderson was ever s-such a nice fellow. S-Stubborn fool, though. I t-told him nothing g-good would come from that Pitch Black- d-did he listen?" In a fit of pique, his stutter seemed to all but disappear. " _No._ His own f-fault he's dying, really."

"You mean to say we came  _all_ this way so you could tell us no?" Jack shouted, rising to his feet. His hand was still frozen to the water glass, and irritably he shook it. It seperated from his fingers and crashed against the smooth white floor. Immediately a robot appeared to clear up the shards of glass.  _"What use are you!?"_

Manny seemed shocked at Jack's outburst, his round face turning waxy and pale with fear. He mopped his face worriedly. "L-Look J-Jack," he quivered, "there's n-nothing w-we c-can do." He offered a pathetic smile. "N-No one r-regrets this m-more than m-me. S-Sanderson w-was m-my f-friend. B-But w-we n-need t-to f-find ways to stop you f-fading once S-Sanderson is gone."

North rose to his feet as well, to clap Jack on the shoulder and give him a look that spoke volumes. "Manny, old friend," North spoke slowly, clearly trying to restrain himself, "Surely you are knowing something? To save Sandy?"

Manny fidgeted with his waistcoat buttons. The portly man shot to his feet and gestured to the scales Jack had noticed earlier. With an expression of disgust, he tentatively picked up the cracked shadow ball, and Kozmotis let out a shuddering breath beside Jack. "The b-balance is b-broken! Once S-Sanderson d-dies- d-dreams f-fall," he pointed at the golden sand ball, "and the b-balance r-rights itself! I c-can't b-beat that!" He gave them a pleading look. "T-there w-will b-be n-no d-dreams, n-no n-nightmares, b-but-"

 _"Meyyaan,"_ whispered Kozmotis, and for the first time Jack understood.

"Balance," he said, and Kozmotis nodded gravely.

 _"No,"_ Tooth covered her face, and began to sob quietly. North patted her shoulder.

"Isn't there anything we can do?" Jack asked desperately, scraping for one last hope.

Manny bit his lip and glanced at Kozmotis. "Y-You c-could f-find someone to t-take the F-Fearlings ins-side P-Pitch's b-body...b-but..."

Kozmotis went rigid.  _"Kan."_ Jack needed no translation for the flat, stark refusal.  _No._

Shifting nervously, the Man in the Moon repeated, "B-But...it w-would h-have to be s-someone w-with a c-connection t-to y-you, G-General- l-like..." he swallowed and said, extremely quickly,  _"your daughter is the only one compatible with the nightmares."_

For a moment, Kozmotis was blank, as if the possibility of him having a daughter was as incomprehensible to him as it was to Jack.  _"Seraphina?"_ whispered Kozmotis, with desperate hope, the pain in his eyes and sheer, naked relief suddenly too much, until the rest of Manny's words caught up to him, and his expression underwent a rapid change from shocked and hopeful to  _infuriated_ in a millisecond.

Kozmotis uttered a barely human snarl of absolute rage and swung his scythe, charging at Manny as if he fully intended to rend the last scion of the Lunanoffs limb from limb personally. Manny shrieked in fear, a high girlish scream, and scrambled away on his short fat legs.

Jack blinked.  _What?_ "Daughter?!"

"Jack!" shouted Tooth, and Jack's eyes widened and he had to hold back a very inappropriate laugh as the leader of the Guardians ran screaming around a large telescope pursued by one very pissed off ghost, who was determined to  _end_ Manny even if his scythe was cutting straight through the immortal's body with absolutely no effect at all, which Manny hadn't noticed yet.

 _"BASS-DAKKAN- OKSH- MEILLESS!"_  Kozmotis roared, and Manny screamed. The sound set Jack off, and he doubled over, laughing so hard he started crying tears which froze instantly on his cheeks.

North and Tooth looked at him like he was insane, and even Kozmotis slowed, distracted by the bright, ringing laughter. He glanced over and saw Jack, panting for breath and helpless with laughter. His heart softened a little, and the rage that had clouded his sight regressed. Kozmotis suddenly realised he had been threatening his sworn lord with a giant scythe and sheepishly lowered it, uttering a quiet, awkward apology. The look on Kozmotis' face only made Jack laugh harder.

Manny, breathing hard, straightened his suit and looked very shaken. He convulsively mopped his forehead and seemed unable to speak, his mouth opening and closing mutely, like a fish.

Tooth had hidden her mouth with her hand, but her eyes were suspiciously bright and her shoulders were shaking. North was fighting to keep his own composure, closing his eyes and doing his best to think of sad thoughts. He chanced upon a memory of Sandy as he used to be, and it sobered him far quicker than any glass of water to the face.

"Clearly, is not option," he said, and the change in mood affected the others. All the humour in the air seemed to disperse, and Jack straightened. Kozmotis nodded sharply in agreement with North's words, hefting his scythe with a dark glare at anyone that ever dared to suggest the opposite.

"Well," said Manny, obviously still offended, "then I'm afraid there's really nothing I can do." He shrugged lightly. "Sorry."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "vellethzarehk. zar-oksh-lunanoff. aururr-malakkan-kozsmotiss-oksh-pyitchshiner." -Stars shine upon you. (Greeting) Tsar Lunanoff. I am your servant Kozmotis Pitchiner.
> 
> "poss-ehk fraan geh?" -Can you forgive me?
> 
> "luna...gath...ehk?" -Light...speaks...you? (second part of Golden Age greeting- 'And light speak through you.')
> 
> "ehkthakkanperre." -You are not your father.
> 
> "BASS- DAKKAN- OKSH- MEILLESS!" - STAY- AWAY FROM- MY -DAUGHTER!


	13. Tooth's Idea

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It was the Yggdrasil day of remembrance on my Dragons: Rise of Berk game today, so I thought I'd take it as a sign to get my ass in gear and kick out a new chapter.

The complex on the Moon was not large, but the Guardians had elected to stay in the telescope room, which Manny called the 'Observatory'. A team of moonbots had gone out with North to survey the Lamadary tower and check the rough landing hadn't damaged anything vital, and perhaps strap down some of the loose furniture- to avoid a repeat of the adventurous lamp incident which had knocked North out as they landed on the Moon. Kozmotis had immediately wandered off, his scythe slung over his shoulder and such a darkly blank look on his face even Jack hesitated to follow him, into the relatively empty halls of the old Moon Clipper.

He recognised old carvings on the walls as he passed, with fumbling translations scrawled in dust underneath. With a bitter twist of the lip, he noticed several grammatical errors and translation mistakes. Tsar Lunanoff the Younger was evidently not a scholar, despite his wan and nervous disposition.

The stark white hallways were wreathed with dust and wrecked with the popped remnants of garishly coloured balloons, and balloon strings hung from the ceilings (pasted with what looked like whitish moonmice droppings) like trashy plastic spiderwebs, with an arrangement of small plastic weights suspended from the tangles like flies. There was the odd smear of glowing moondust on the walls, and occasional scuffs and scars that might appear when one walked in the childhood home of an adventurous and bored boy. Had Kozmotis weight to bear, the rubber balloons would have crunched and groaned- layer upon layer of ancient popped balloons, their wishes removed, disturbed by his passing. But Kozmotis was insubstantial, and so walked through this bizarre funhouse graveyard of children's wishes and discarded toys, and underneath, an older, desecrated lament of a bygone Age, without a sign.

It infuriated him, some old, cold part of himself that still remembered the pride he had felt as he wore his uniform and walked as a hero through streets paved with starlight and populated by legends. Every memory he had now was poisoned by Pitch, and he could barely remember the shape of the distinctive Lunar Towers rising tall above the Celestial City, heartland of the Golden Empire, the flags flapping against the dimly glowing white stone, silver crescent moon picked out over rich gold. In their place, he saw a smoking ruin, the banners charred black, bodies of screaming parents frozen forever, dead of sudden heart attacks in the paralyzing grips of fear, their children warping and turning shadow-black with warped grins and hungry eyes, fire raging and giving off thick oily black smoke through which walked the Nightmare King in his jagged, broken crown.

He had hoped, when the Guardians had told him they were headed to the homeport- the home- of the last scion of the Lunanoffs, and Kozmotis' sworn lord, he supposed, though none were alive to remember his oath that had been made to Mim's father, to protect and serve the Golden Empire with his life, that it would be different. He breathed a humorless sigh. Look how far that had got him.

He had hoped that the young Tsar would have grown into a man like his father, or even a sharp and shy thing like his mother had been. The Lunanoffs had always been rare creatures- valiant and stalwart in times of trouble, but in private, delicate and uneasy, flighty, like the phases of the moon. Their line carried a history of madness, a fact elegantly glossed over in history books, for while there was nearly always a troubled cousin or a mad brother, the ruler always did their best, and they hadn't had a Tsar quite like the Moon King in thousands of years (a famously mad Tsar). Taking into account such uneasy ancestors, it shouldn't have surprised Kozmotis that the Lunanoff's legacy was the stuttering, pallid young man who devoted himself to providing a childhood he had not known. There were worse goals, certainly, but...

He hadn't expected to feel so... disappointed. The blatant disregard to his origins insulted him. Mim hadn't even understood the basic elements of the most commonly used greeting of Constellar society. It was a sobering wake-up call to Kozmotis, drifting along with his heart still set to the Golden Age. He truly was the last relic of a civilisation that had spanned galaxies- a broken ghost, an angry Pooka, a dying star whose voice no one could hear, an anthropophobic, nervous young man and a corpse full of shadows.

_"What a great mark we have left upon history,"_ Kozmotis whispered, touching one of the defaced walls of the old Clipper sadly. He remembered this ship in it's prime, the jewel of the fleet.

But...perhaps they weren't the only ones. Mim had said that...Seraphina had survived.

Kozmotis didn't dare to believe it. He had spent years mourning her, even before he had been shut away in the darkness. Dark nights and darker days when all he had wanted to do was throw himself from the mast of his ship and die, join his wife and daughter in death. It had been the memory of her, a cold fire in his heart, that had drove him forward with just one empty thought-  _revenge._ And he had gotten it, for a while. The shadows had been locked up. The war won. But it hadn't made the emptiness go away, and Kozmotis volunteered to guard the prison because he couldn't bear to learn to live again without his daughter, without his wife.

And now...everything- all the sacrifices he had made, the nights he had spent alone in his cabin staring with sleepless eyes up at the ceiling and imagining that moment when the door would slam closed on the darkness that had taken his daughter...were for nothing? The shadows had prevailed over everything, in the end. He had thought they had taken his family, taken his sanity, and eventually, his very soul and mind to use as their own puppet.

_"All those years in the shadows, I thought, no one else knows what this feels like,"_ Kozmotis muttered bitterly. He paused, and with a dawning, fragile hope, the hope of a father that could never be repressed, murmured so softly he barely even heard it himself,  _"...but now, I see I was wrong."_

Had he been wrong? Was Seraphina alive? But why hadn't she come for him? She had to have known that he was still alive within the shadows. She had to have known that Kozmotis hadn't taken them willingly, that Pitch Black and Kozmotis Pitchiner were very different creatures- she had to. She couldn't have...

He wracked his shadow-stolen mind, searching for any memory of his daughter, but all that he could remember were dim flashes of grey eyes and red hair- and Kozmotis knew his daughter didn't have red hair. Some other random girl Pitch had tried to kidnap? It all got extremely blurry if he tried to reach back past Kozmotis-who-was-Pitch's decline at the end of the Dark Ages, and beyond that- darkness, and writhing shadows. He remembered dizzy, strange flashes of personality, emerging, erupting, learning to dance on coltish legs that moved skittishly away from where he wanted them to go, horses that looked at him with liquid eyes, golden necklaces and bracelets and an embarrassing collection of soft tarnished gold he had stolen purely for it's colour by firelight. (By the time of the battle at Easter, an entire cavern had been filled with soft, shining gold, trinkets and materials of all type, so long as they were the correct aurous shade.) It had been that kleptomaniac obsession with gold that had led to the first shy attempts at stealing dreamsand, and the army of Nightmares. The Nightmares that had ripped Pitch Black apart.

It couldn't have been that over all the years Kozmotis-who-was-Pitch had been trapped on the Earth that they had simply never encountered one another. Had he not recognised her? Had he attacked her? Had she hid from him? The possibilities were numerous and horrifying to consider.

_I will find you,_ he promised.  _I will find you._ Jack would help him, he knew. He could trust the winter boy, he understood it as strongly as he did the minds of the dead people he set free, their fading memories slipping through his fingers like smoke against glass. Even Pitch had felt the underlying connection between Jack and Kozmotis-who-was-Pitch, had striven to understand and dominate it through controlling the boy. Kozmotis, gentler and more knowing of a human heart, fostered it with what he dared to believe was friendship.

Jack would help him find Seraphina, and once he had...he had no idea. He would beg her forgiveness, but he didn't know what her reaction would be. Would she turn him away in disgust? She had every right. His heart felt like lead. He didn't think he could bear it if Seraphina shut him out.

He looked down at his ghostly hands.  _What a terrible father I have been..._

_"_ Kozmotis?" The voice was soft. He glanced up and saw Jack, nervous and fiddling with his staff.

Kozmotis looked at him, tried to fight his lips into a smile, but they refused to move, so he sighed instead and rested his head against the blade of his scythe. He thought Jack understood, because without further question he walked up to Kozmotis and wrapped his arms around Kozmotis' waist, guiding his head to rest on the shorter boy's shoulder. Kozmotis' icy tears froze when they came in contact with Jack's hoodie, leaving a pale translucent trail over his shoulder. Kozmotis seized onto the contact, some unsilenced scream of all those endless years  _alone_ in the darkness craving someone had left a mark even on the cold, pale ghost he had become.

Jack's hands traced over the intricate patterns in Kozmotis' armour, committing them to memory. He exhaled, and his breath was laced with frost crystals, decorating the beaten silver of Kozmotis' hair. "I didn't know you had a daughter," he said quietly, breaking the silence with a noncommittal comment.

Kozmotis nodded against Jack's shoulder, with the soft splinter of frozen tears.  _"You will meet her for yourself soon, I hope."_ He knew that Jack didn't understand his words, but it was enough to know that he had responded.

"Will I ever get to meet her one day?" Jack asked, with light teasing, and Kozmotis nodded again, more vigorously, drawing back to look Jack in the eye. He cupped Jack's cheek, as he had done when he had first met the winter boy, and Jack, one arm still around Kozmotis' back, moved his other hand to rest over Kozmotis' dead heart, following the unspoken signal.

"Manny said..." Jack hesitated. "Manny said she became Mother Nature."

Kozmotis inhaled. Seraphina had always loved plants. He could think of no better job for her.

He started to sob, softly, audibly, and Jack's eyes softened with sympathy and understanding, as Kozmotis wept for the daughter he had not had a chance to know, for the stranger she had become, and the relief of knowing she was alive.

* * *

"It really is a t-terrible shame," Manny said comfortably, refilling Tooth's glass of lightwater. "C-Couldn't have h-happened to a nicer s-spirit."

It was just them on the low white couches, Tooth perched on the edge of one to accommodate her wings, Manny sprawled over the other with the perfect ease of a man who had grown very used to such a position. Tooth avoided looking at him, knowing it had his convulsive stutter and nervousness worse, and instead sipped the lightwater to occupy herself. She fiddled with her bracers, tracing the vinelike patterns.

"Speaking of..." she trailed off. "You mentioned- before. Something about Sandy's shadow? How can he be missing a shadow?" She rubbed the bracer. Underneath it, her burn itched and stung.

Manny snorted. "Surely my d-dear, you n-noticed S-Sanderson cast a shadow- despite glowing? And P-P-Pitch could w-walk in the l-light, despite being a c-creature of shadow?"

"I- what? They were immune to each other?" But Sandy and Pitch had been able to fight each other perfectly well.

"N-No," mused the Man in the Moon. "I d-don't think s-so. There w-was a connection...w-what it w-was and h-how it c-came to be, I don't know." He uttered a petulant moue. "He w-would never t-tell me."

"Sandy?" asked Tooth, just to be sure, and Manny waved an irritable hand in confirmation. She sighed. "If only we could go back and see."

"W-Well," snorted Manny, "G-Good luck finding s-someone who w-was alive b-back then to t-tell you."

Tooth took another sip of her lightwater. She felt as if something was missing, staring her right in the face...

The idea, when it came, hit like a thunderbolt, and Tooth couldn't restrain herself from doing a flip in the air of joy. "But someone was!" she yelled, when Manny looked at her in terror, "You were! Your memories! If we access your memories- we can see what connects Sandy and Pitch, and we can break the connection and restore Sandy!"

"H-How?" asked Manny, "Y-Your p-powers w-work on ch-children's t-teeth, n-not adult s-spirits."

"True," said Tooth, grinning, "But Kozmotis sees the memories of people who have died when he cuts their souls- he told us, back at the Pole, when Bunny asked what he did- and with my guidance-"

"Y-You're g-going t-to let h-him c-cut me with that-that- _thing?!"_

"-with my guidance- we can see the memories, and save Sandy!" steamrollered Tooth, directly over the Man in the Moon's protests, "Come on!"

She darted off, shrieking with excitement, to find Kozmotis and Jack. They had an age of secrets to uncover.


	14. Drop

"So...you're saying if we somehow channel your powers through Kozmotis, we can see Manny's memories?" Jack summarised sceptically.

They were back in the Observatory, standing before the great brass telescope, looming overhead and gleaming in the faint white radiance from the walls. The large instrument was pointed down at the little blue and green planet spinning below, and Jack had already spent a few fun hours trying to search for his pond through the miraculously sharp telescope, though Manny had been exceptionally fussy about the possibility of his ice disrupting the sensitive gears. The Man in the Moon was noticeably absent, no doubt panicking over his upcoming role in Tooth's insane plan, and North was still outside with the moonbots.

Kozmotis looked doubtful, sharing a glance with Jack. He wasn't particularly eager to stay for much longer at the Moon. He wanted to get back to Earth as soon as possible in order to see Seraphina. He was occupied mostly with her. He didn't care for the Moon, nor the last scion of his sworn lord. Stars knew he had served them endlessly in life, ceaselessly had to prioritise Lunar's orders over his own family- surely he deserved this damned afterlife?

"Yes!" said Tooth excitedly, "Kozmotis," she half turned to Kozmotis, her wings blurring so fast she rose a little higher in the air, "you said you saw a person's dead memories when you cut them with your scythe? And I can access memories too! With our seperate ways of looking through memories, we should be able to combine our powers and project them into something we means we can watch them back!"

"Um...Tooth," pointed out Jack awkwardly, "not to rain on your parade, but Kozmotis can't actually touch anyone."

"But Jack," said Tooth, her eyes shining as she darted forward and grabbed him into an exuberant hug, "He can touch  _you._ You'd be the focusing piece, the one watching the memories. It's the only way that will work- I asked Manny, and I know memory, I physically can't make someone remember memories from that young, you're really the only one-"

Jack staggered back a step when Tooth's weight slammed into him and he suddenly found himself with an armful of excited Tooth Fairy. Her words caught up to him and his eyes widened in shock. "Me?" he squeaked.

"Y-Yes," said Manny's voice from behind him, and Kozmotis turned to see the last Lunanoff, doing his best to look brave, despite the fear in his eyes. Manny's face was milk-white and gleamed unpleasantly with sweat. Beside him was North, giving Manny a steady, deep look that Manny searched for desperately, as if for support. North smiled and nodded, and Manny swallowed, turning to face them. He re-adjusted his bowtie nervously at their glances, then determinedly held his hands by his sides. "Y-You are the o-one w-with the s-strongest c-connection to me." He hesitated, mustering his courage. "I  _made_ you, w-with my own power." His voice strengthened slightly. "It would be easier to reopen the l-link." His nervous eyes rose to meet Jack's with an uncharacteristic power glowing somewhere in the silvery hint to his irises, and Kozmotis nodded approvingly with a rare smile.

The boy had some of his ancient line's old kick, after all.

North discreetly clapped Manny's shoulder, his eyes glowing with pride. "Well done," he whispered, as quietly as North ever did. Manny flushed pallidly and looked down when Tooth joined in, gliding over to their beloved leader and looking into his eyes with her own gentle pink ones. The rainbow feathered fairy alighted beside Manny, resting her slim hand on the Man in the Moon's white suited shoulder, and looking back at Jack.

Jack glanced between Kozmotis and Manny, blue eyes begging Kozmotis to take his side. Jack didn't want to look through Manny's old memories. Experiencing his own rush of memories had been ground-shaking and traumatic enough, and Jack still had gut-wrenching flashes of memory- his sister's eyes, the taste of his mother's old stew on his tongue, that left him wrecked and crying for days. He didn't want to have to go through it again, with someone else's memories. Hell, he didn't even like Manny all that much. There was no way he wanted to remember what it felt like to be the Last Prince of the Golden Age complete with babyhood.

But then Jack looked at Kozmotis, really looked.

He saw a man who had fought, and fought, and fought, and lost everything because he just  _wouldn't_ give up. He saw a man who had nothing left but the shattered remnants of an old mind ravaged and broken by endless centuries of possession, an old mind that still refused to stop fighting, that hung on and by it's sheer tenacity, forged a wraithlike phantom image of who he had once been- hell, the man didn't even have his own  _body_ anymore. He saw a man had had everything ripped from him and still he was still hanging on. He saw a man who had had to endure to burden of fighting alone for endless centuries, entrusted by Manny's parents, their world, an ancient civilisation that should have known better than to force one man to shoulder the burden of galaxies- no matter that he  _had,_ had done the best he could, by the Guardians, relying on Pitch's mind to tear itself apart and break itself down when they were unwilling to finish the job. He saw a man who had never stopped fighting, never even considered it as an option. He saw a man that would never stop looking for ways to defy the shadows. He saw a man who was Jack's friend, a man that had reached out to him even through the dark glass of shadow possession, their rough and unfinished edges sheering away from each other on a plain of white ice ruled by a black spire.

He saw a man he was willing to fight for.

"Okay," he said quietly, and then louder, "Okay. I'll do it. Where do I sit?"

* * *

"Alright, Jack," said North, "are you comfortable?"

Jack exhaled and took a last sip of fortifying lightwater. He put the glass down and settled into a lying down position.

The Guardians had relocated to one of the few dusty guestrooms in the Moon's complex, hastily cleaned by an apologetic Manny. Jack was currently laying on a soft white bed that smelt strongly of moonmice, but he wasn't complaining. It was very comfortable. It was very sparsely appointed, all the miscellaneous furniture cleared out to give the Guardians space to work, but Jack guessed he wouldn't be conscious to worry about whether there was a dresser in the room or not. The ceiling was plain white, and Jack focused his gaze there, trying to pull up some bravery. He knew there was a chance he wouldn't survive. He was afraid. He didn't want to do this.

A cold hand found his own, and Jack turned his head to regard Kozmotis giving him a soft, reassuring smile. The ghost squeezed the dead boy's fingers gently. Jack exhaled shakily, and pushed his fear aside. He squeezed back, holding onto Kozmotis' hand like a lifeline. " _Pahdonne suzieque, Shyak._ _"_ whispered the ghost, and leaned down to brush his lips tenderly over Jack's forehead.  _"Sslen okgeh."_

Lying awkwardly beside him on the bed, Manny smiled hesitantly. Tooth returned his smile and carefully adjusted the position their heads were in until their temples were close. "Close your eyes," she whispered, and with a shiver of fear, Manny did as he was told. She pressed her thumbs lightly over his eyelids, wished Sandy was here to send the clearly petrified man into a deep sleep. But Sandy was the whole reason they were doing this.

"Ready?" she asked, and Kozmotis nodded reluctantly, releasing Jack's hand and stepping back. Jack's hand twitched as if it already missed Kozmotis, and the ghost longed to reassure the boy. He lifted his scythe instead, his tears streaming down his cheeks. He met Tooth's eyes, then North's. Both Guardians looked grave, the unspoken risk deep between them.

If they did this...there was a possibility that Jack would never wake up, and even if he did, there was no telling how Manny's memories would change him. Kozmotis would have to kill Jack, sever his connection to Manny, and so open the pathway for Tooth's magic to force Jack to remember Manny's memories. If all went well, Jack's magic would kickstart him into life again, and all that would happen would be that he would lose the deeper tie Jack had magically to his creator. If it didn't...

Kozmotis swallowed and blinked away tears that were blurring his vision. He had to have a very accurate cut.

"Yes," whispered Manny, so quietly they barely heard him. Jack looked desperately at Kozmotis, holding his gaze and pleading for strength. Kozmotis stared back, wishing he could take Jack's place and spare him the risks.

"Do it," said Jack strongly, raising his chin.

Tooth nodded, but Jack wasn't looking at her. He was looking at Kozmotis as the ghost raised his scythe, his eyes terribly, terribly mournful, as if he had already lost Jack.

The Man in the Moon screamed. Tooth gasped. " _Jack!"_ she shouted.

The scythe fell.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Pahdonne suzieque Shyak. Sslen okgeh."-
> 
> Sleep and dream, Jack. Come back to me.


	15. Sandman's Soul

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay I know this chapter is confusing as hell, it will be explained. Hopefully. If you haven't already guessed everything there is to guess- to be honest, I've been obvious enough. On the plus side- this is now being translated into Spanish by the wonderful bluefrosty27, on fanfiction. My name is Unique. F on fanfiction, and I have no earthly idea how to put links in the descriptions, I'm afraid, if it's anything like fanfiction I won't be able to. If you find me on fanfiction, it will be in my favourites, if you wish to read it in Spanish. The first chapter has been translated.

 

Mother Nature was somewhere in the Africa when she heard the summons, attending a particularly sick pride of lions. The local hunters had been busy shooting the big males for their skins, which, while it had been going on since humanity realised killing things around it gave it the nice things the animals had, had recently gained a rather disturbing upswing. It wasn't as if they even  _needed_ the skins, thought Nature, rather irritably, with those life-choking spots of tar they called cities sprawling about the place, crackling with harnessed lightning and cold yellow light glowing against low clouds of smoke.

Nature tried to avoid those, knowing that neither she nor her animals were welcome there. Enough poor animals had been exterminated by righteous walking apes that Nature had almost given up on reclaiming the wayward humans. No matter how many tsunamis and earthquakes she sent against them, still they continued to ignore each other and their world. Mother was not best pleased.

She stroked the tawny lioness laying tamely at her feet, a burst of life-giving magic shocking through the lioness' body. A green tingle glittered at her fingertips briefly. The lioness' warm brown eyes widened, then she laid her head back down, apparently unbothered as Nature's magic worked through her body, fertilising her. The newly pregnant lioness yawned and went to sleep.

Nature frowned. She hated having to intercede directly, but the pride needed the cubs she had just given the lioness dearly. She rose to her feet, brushing down the knees of her shifting dry-grass skirt. She was clad in colours that suited the wind-blasted, heat-scored landscape, a sleeveless dress that left her muscled arms bare, but wound around her chest in tan strips to her waist. Her bare feet, brown as the dirt beneath her toes, trod the sharp jutting rocks with impunity, tough soles well-used to such treatment. Her long black hair swayed and stirred like a rippling onyx lake in a rising gust of dry, scorching wind. A few desert-yellow butterflies fluttered free of her dark tresses. She was a tall woman, long-faced and high-cheekboned, inexpressibly lovely even as she was mercurial and often cruel. Mother's bright green eyes narrowed and sharpened like a hawk's, pupil slitting as she searched the cloudless, bright blue sky.

A dark shape, small and flitting, was making it's way across the hot expanse, a small bird that most certainly was  _not_ supposed to be there.

Without thought, her winds gathered around her, lifting Mother Nature into the sky with ease. She ascended like a earthen goddess, the dark browns and muted golds of her dress whipping around her as a roiling cloud formed underneath her feet. The blackbird arrowed towards her, and she raised a nut-brown arm, scarred from countless talons gripping onto bare flesh, for the little bird to land. He did so, his bright black and yellow eyes gleaming inquisitively as he cocked his head and shuffled his weary black wings, polished and shining like liquid jet. "Hello," she said, "Little one, what are you doing all the way out here?"

The blackbird chirruped, shifting his grip, and relayed his sentences with quick, fleeting chirps, his song hurried. Mother did not tolerate dawdling, any more than she did time-wasting. He thought she would definitely be interested in this message, though. Mother listened to the little bird attentively, a frown creasing her wild features. "The scales?" she asked, just to be sure. The blackbird dipped his sharp beak, twittering in confusion and dismay. He repeated his message anxiously. Mother's big scales were all out of balance, not just a little bit, wildly tipping as if it were about to break.

"Which scale?" Mother wanted to know, peering intently at the little bird, which shuffled his feet, uncertain. He piped up once more, and Mother Nature's green eyes widened and turned instantly dark and stormy.

"The Scale of Dreams..." she whispered, staring off into the distance. A bitter twist of the lip. "Of course."  _What have you done now, Father?_ she wondered. Could she afford to ignore it, as she had done when the balance had wobbled most recently? She'd been so busy, then, clearing up after the damnable Moon Child's frost left laying around everywhere- honestly, Nature thought with some annoyance, had no one bothered to inform him he couldn't just  _set a blizzard off in Haiti,_ years of careful meteorological planning,  _wasted..._

She'd listened the stories of the most recent scrap between Pitch Black and the Guardians with some interest from the neighbouring animals, and had gone off to Antarctica rather crossly to melt that stupid spire of nightmares and fun-infused ice-  _whose_ idea was it to leave that lying around, Mother wanted to know- and she couldn't deny she'd been a little upset when she had heard of Sandman's momentary setback. Death wouldn't have held on to him, of course, otherwise he and Mother would have  _words-_ she was far too fond of Captain Sandy to let Death keep him, despite the rattling bag of bones' grousing-  _"No, Nature, you can't just bring someone back because you favour them-" "Watch me."_

_A damned weakness of mine,_ she thought sourly. Despite all of her attempts, Mother Nature never could quite forget the time when she had been Seraphina Pitchiner, and Captain Sanderson Mansnoozie her beloved star pilot. She never had been able to stand his tears.  _Anyone but him,_ she groused, as she called her winds,  _I could kill quite happily. Especially that thrice-blasted Moon Child. I might just winnow down a few of those fluttering fairies, a minor tremor off at the Pole, a nice drought in Australia, that would annoy them sufficiently._ She scowled.  _A permanent heatwave centred over that foolish Moon Child's pond._ A slight smile tugged at her lips as she imagined the Moon Child sweltering under the hottest sun she could conjure, eventually melting into a sad pile of dead frozen boy- like he was  _supposed to,_ if the idiot Tsar hadn't decided to bring him back purely to be a pain...

With one last sigh, she exhaled, her body swaying and scattering into thousands of particles of dust that melted away in the blistering wind. The blackbird, his perch suddenly disappearing, squeaked with alarm and took off again. Mother Nature's form had disappeared in seconds, leaving the blackbird to make his way back to more sensible climes by himself. He chirped wearily, and set off, a small shape against the brightness of the blue sky.

Mother Nature reassembled as a swarm of butterflies in the abundant grove she called home. A giant tree that stretched far beyond sight dominated the grove, trees permanently flowering and green heavy with blossoms and fruit around it. The ground was thickly carpeted with moss and protruding tree roots made a living web across the floor, which squirrels used as runways in their chasing games and birds small perches. The closer to the World Tree, Yggdrasil, the bigger the trees got, from slender willows with their delicate hanging branches to thick, sturdy oaks and powerful yews, widening in size and variation until the ones closest to the tree were forty paces around and grew taller than seven-story buildings. Snufflings and rustlings were common as the animals that dwelled within Mother Nature's personal home emerged from between the thick, mossy trunks, their eyes wide with worry. Here, tiger walked side by side with antelope, deer with wolf, cheetah and small hare. The deep, verdant shelter between the trees was a haven for all lost and extinct animals, as well as common ones, and while Mother Nature never forbade her own laws in her home, the animals were far more peaceable here.

Mother Nature didn't spare them a glance, instead, moving straight to the intricate system of vines and roots that made the all-important Balances of the World, a dozen different scales all hung with balls in all variety of colour and brightness, giving it the appearance of a bizarre, many-limbed tree festooned with arcane baubles. In the centre of the complex system was cradled her own representation, a glowing orb of bright, emerald green, and resting upon the scale on the other end of her own, a white hollowed out one of yellowed bone. Life, and death.

Her foot crunched over something in the soft springy grass, and surprised, Nature drew back her foot, her eyes widening and a gasp tearing from her throat.

It was a dark ball, the shadows within barely having the strength to half-heartedly twist, faded grey and cracked neatly down the middle in two halves, showing off a cold, silver centre that shone with an unearthly light. She knelt beside the wreckage of Nightmares, her heart sinking in her chest as she lightly reached out to brush a finger against the exposed centre of the ball. It was cold, the cold of deep space and death.

Abruptly, Mother Nature's head bowed and her shoulders tightened.  _No._

The connection between the broken core and it's body was empty, cold.  _Dead._ Sometimes, she thought frantically, she had difficulty finding the connection between herself and one who had not been born one of her children- someone not from Earth. It could be nothing more than weakness, extreme weakness, the Guardians always left him severely beaten, but Sandman wouldn't let his counterpart fall, he understood the balance, but Mother Nature knew the unique feeling of Pitch's core very well, having reached for it many times over the years, she wanted to believe it was wrong but-

_Dead._ With an echoing numbness, Seraphina closed her eyes tightly, an unexpected lump in her throat making it difficult to breathe.  _Dead._ She'd pushed away all remnants of Seraphina Pitchiner for years, striven to forget a face blurring with time, the memory of a scratchy voice singing her to sleep, an echoing haunt in the darkness of a lonely child's heart. She was long over the absence of her father, could pretend with perfect ease that it didn't still hurt when the shambling ruins of him rose from the darkness like an ugly doll painted black. Her heart clenched and she stroked the pallid silver lining. It was rough and flawed beneath her skin.

_Finally,_ she thought, with a harsh, desperate abandon,  _I suppose this is proof enough that you were still alive in there..._ Her father hadn't perished at the prison planet after all, else Pitch Black's heart would not be singing starsteel silver instead of black and warped. If Kozmotis had still been present within Pitch...did that mean-

_I could have gotten them out, I could've saved you, you were still alive, all these years, I hated you and cast you aside and I condemned you-_ "No," she whispered, and when did her voice get so choked?

She tried to push away this sudden storm of hurt feelings, wounded and angry animal flinching untamed from a hand that continued to beat it. "No, no," she repeated, squeezing her eyes tightly. She was Mother Nature, Seraphina Pitchiner didn't matter anymore. She was beyond everything that had tied to that old life. Even the dearest creature to her heart was long gone (Mother knew better than to think the Sandman was more than Captain Sandy's face and sweetness, without his shining heart, Captain Sandy was not Captain Sandy at all, despite how good he had become at pretending.)

Clouds gathered overhead, thickening and darkening into threatening thunderheads. The animals around her eyed the hunched form of their Mother warily, understanding her cold and vicious temper but wishing to reassure her nonetheless. The weaker animals fled back to their nests and perches to wait out the inevitable storm, but a particularly brave wolf crept close to Mother on her belly, whining low in her throat and butting her head against Mother's dark hand, where it rested on the fresh grass beside the broken core.

Mother Nature did not react, frozen in the grip of Seraphina Pitchiner's mourning.  _I shouldn't be mourning him,_ she thought,  _I accepted he was gone a long time ago...even if he wasn't. It doesn't matter to me. Kozmotis Pitchiner is nothing, nothing more than a dusty figure of the past who used to be a father. Even old blind Titan was a better caretaker than he. He sired me, nothing more, nothing less. It happens all the time, parents break away from children, grow up alone..._

Seraphina knew, no matter how much she pretended, she was not as emotionless and wild as one of her animals, despite years of trying, she couldn't bury the little girl who had been reconciled under the gentle care of her star pilot to her cold guise. But once Seraphina had accepted and absolved the hurt little girl inside her, the hurt girl that would never quite leave, she remained a constant, haunted little waif in her thoughts. With her star pilot at her side, Seraphina had begun to heal, had learned how to start putting misshapen plasters over old wounds, patch up something aching in her soul, but her star pilot had been ripped away by the very face she had so mourned before Seraphina had ever learned how to do more than put makeshift covers in place over the cracks in her heart.

_If only we were still sailing the stars,_ she thought,  _you...you would never leave me alone then. Now, I barely recognise you._ The Sandman, for all his gentleness and familiarity, was  _not_ her Captain Sandy.

_Pitch Black is dead._ She was harshly glad in some ways. Finally, his mischief, his dark haunting, his insidious nightmares- flashing yellow eyes in the darkness,  _remember falling, dearest_ Mother?- was gone. She had declared herself neutral to his fate years ago, after all. She had no reason to regret or mourn this decision. But the fragments of her father, that obsession with dancing- she remembered watching from far off as a laughing Pitch Black discovered that he could dance, could twist his body in fantastic movements that flowed from one into the other. She never could get the brightness of his yellow-silver eyes out of her mind, the wide smile on his face, delighted, astonished-  _I can dance, I can dance, Onyx,_ talking to his Nightmares like they were people. Her father had liked to dance, once her mother taught him how, he had always been patient with creatures of every sort, however they communicated.

She found herself wondering if had all been coincidence, or if some shattered remains of her father had been screaming out from the deceptive joy in Pitch's cruel eyes, begging his daughter to uncover the truth behind the corruption. Her father had certainly not had the powerful thirst for gold, the traits and quirks that made Pitch Black just alien enough from Kozmotis Pitchiner to keep her away.

But now, she wondered, and in the wondering damned herself.  _Why now?_ she thought bitterly,  _why now, why now come to me with this revelation?_

A hand lifted and twisted itself into the she-wolf's thick ruff almost savagely, as the hurt and sadness in Seraphina's heart manifested itself into the full, destructive power of Mother Nature's familiar anger. The wolf whined, and she patted it's head soothingly, rising from the ground and glancing back at the scales.

The split second action saved the Sandman's life.

Just as she turned to glance at it, the core of Dreams, weakly burning, flickered and went out. Mother Nature's eyes widened. The ball teetered...

...wobbled...

...tipped...

...and  _fell._

An inarticulate cry ripped out of her throat as she dove for the greying yellow ball, the numb whiteness of death spreading through Sandman's core like a cancer.  _"No!"_ She caught it, perfectly, in her brown, roughened palms, felt the Sandman's heart jerk in response to her life-giving touch. "No!" she snarled, fiercely now, hunching over the weak core and pumping it full of her electric emerald magic,  _not you, I can stand to lose anyone but you, no,_ "breathe,  _breathe!"_ she chanted, her eyes closed and furrowed with concentration.

Far away, the Sandman's heart stuttered once more. Seraphina had never been more glad that Aster had insisted that Mother Nature herself weave life-giving runes into his Warren. She drew on their power, on her own power, on the power of the forest around her, and lashed a vine-green whip around the fading exhale of the Sandman's spirit, anchored to his golden body, forcibly trapped him inside, refused to accept defeat. Death laughed in the back of her mind.

_Not you, not you, not you,_ "Captain Sandy,  _breathe, damnit,"_ she sobbed, and her tears dripped emerald green onto the cooling core, another jump of the Sandman's heart making her redouble her efforts.

The forest around her started to wither. The she-wolf screamed as her life-force drained away into the Mother, collapsing at Mother Nature's feet. Seraphina didn't care. She was bringing Captain Sandy back even if it meant the death of the  _World Tree_ itself-  _anyone but you, Captain Sandy, breathe, breathe for me, breathe with me._ "Come back, come back," she pleaded, her voice cracking, seeing the dim light of her star pilot's soul struggling against the bright green cage of Nature's magic around his golden body, struggling to reach the beckoning, cold arms of Death.

It was an empty darkness around them, the Sandman's body curled up on his side, eyes closed, still and perfect in death- he'd died in his sleep, all the worries and pain of his last few days wiped free in peace- and his soul was vibrant and bright, glittering all over with gold, incandescent silver eyes and a quicksilver heart, the cold fingers of Death reaching to claim that life forever.

_"NO!"_ she roared, more vines of life wrapping around Captain Sandy's soul, pushing him back into his earthly cage.  _"I WON'T LET YOU LEAVE!"_

_Not Sandy- not Captain Sandy- anyone but him-_

It wasn't working, Mother Nature's power wasn't enough to keep him grounded. Captain Sandy didn't want to live. He was struggling against the hold of Life, reaching towards Death eagerly. Trees withered and crumbled into rot around Mother Nature. Storms whipped up and died around her still figure. But Seraphina wouldn't let him go, not even if it meant the death of the planet itself.

_"Give him up, Nature,"_ Death's cold voice was the rattle of locked doors and the last breath of children.  _"He should have been mine long ago, you know this."_

_"No!"_ she fought, refusing to let go of her Captain Sandy,  _"I won't!"_

_"All things must die, Nature,"_ gloated Death,  _"even your beloved Pilot. He has been dead for years."_

_"I don't care!"_ she screamed.  _"Fight, damnit, Captain Sandy! Breathe! COME BACK!"_

_"He can't come back again,"_ Death told her flatly.  _"He's dead. Bit hard to recover from ME."_

_"Don't leave me alone again!"_

Something stirred. Something deep space cold, behind-the-stars dark. Something that writhed and coiled and purred with slick evil. The darkness was no longer empty.

Something shadow-dark and pitch black looped almost casually around the shining silver of the Sandman's heart, tugging him back into his body with ease. All at once, Mother Nature's cage of magic sank into the Sandman's flesh, and his heart thumped, once, twice, then settled into a steady beat.

Death howled in rage. He manifested before Nature, the empty sockets of his skull burning with hatred.  _"I will have him one day,"_ he promised viciously,  _"All things must die! Even your Sandman!"_

Breathless with triumph, Seraphina Pitchiner laughed, opening her eyes and looking down to the dim core of Dreams she held cupped in her hands. "I'm coming, Captain Sandy."


	16. One

_Jack Frost had enough time to look in horror at Kozmotis' widening eyes, before the scythe cut and a searing pain ripped through his core. Electric sparks jetted through his veins He screamed, soundlessly, his voice instantly swallowed by a choking wave of brightness that slammed into him with the force of a tidal wave. The room around him flashed white like moonlight, and Jack fell, screaming, backwards down the link into the Man in the Moon's mind. He had half a second of foreign, alien panic against his mind, the rough and raw mesh of rebelling minds forced together by whips of magic that gleamed violet-rose and pulsed with icy-silver. The foreign mind was bright, harsh white, thoughts circular and clicking in alien, deep ponderings beyond Jack, gravid shifts of pulls of tides and complex machinery humming somewhere out of side, the clean purity of a moonbeam. Brief instances of burning sensation exploded in his mind, swift and fleeting, and he found his own mind eroding as whiteness was replaced with faint, fuzzy feelings of darkness, self slipping away, as Jack Frost was thrown back in time to when it all began, at the birth of the Man in the Moon._

* * *

His world is white.

There is something scratchy against skin, unbearably rough, a nurse's shift. There is a loud wailing sound of upset and disapproval emanating shrilly from somewhere. A comforting pressure wraps around his weak body, and he kicks experimentally, flailing awkward limbs he doesn't know how to use yet. His eyes are scrunched up as he screams. The arms holding him rock him gently, and somewhere something says,  _"My Tsarina...you have a son."_ A blanket is tucked around him gently, something warm and comfortable which holds the chill of the new air at bay.

He is moved, settled into a new pair of arms, which a pair of roughened hands carefully correct before he is laid down.  _"Shhh,"_ hums something low and familiar, and then, higher,  _"Hello, my son, my son, my little boy. You're a handsome boy, aren't you?"_ A soft, breathless laugh, and he waves his chubby fists, his wails dropping off to hiccuping sobs as he recognises the voice of his mother. He knows this voice, has heard it murmuring to him for months in the warm shroud of darkness he had been living in.

The baby squints blurrily. A blur is looming over him, the striking contrast of sweaty dark curls falling against her pallid face, dark eyes and lips. He can't see colour yet, but he is fascinated by the contrast of the black and whites. He knows her smell, though. She smells like safety and familiarity. He reaches for her as best as he can, and she settles him gently in her arms, rocking him soothingly. Her eyes are shining.  _"My son,"_ she whispers wonderingly,  _"My son."_

Big hands hold him close to her, and he grabs at the loose silky fabric of the white dress she wears. He is transfixed by the black patterns of strange half circles and black spots on it.  _"My baby,"_ sighs his mother. She looks down at him lovingly, utterly entranced by the small bundle she holds in her arms. There are a thin trail of tears still on her cheeks, which are pale and sweaty from her former exertion. Her arms shake and she repositions him against her lap, wincing. He thinks she is beautiful.

 _"The little prince is very healthy,"_ something says, some dim part of him suggests a nurse, but he doesn't care, because his mother is right there, and he is more sleepy than anything else right now.  _"I fed him, he'll be dropping right off to sleep."_ The nurse assures his mother, and he can hear the muted noises of her bustling around his mother, quiet thumps of cloth in her hand, a splash of water.

 _"Thank you,"_ whispers his mother, then, hesitantly,  _"Do you know where my husband is?"_ She waits anxiously for an answer; unconsciously, her arms tighten around him protectively.  _"Shh, baby,"_ she whispers, although he has made no noise. He burbles at her cheerfully.

The nurse pauses in her movements.  _"We sent him a message when you went into labour, my Tsarina,"_ she says, carefully neutral.  _"I will inquire."_ A few moments later, there is a creak of hinges, and the nurse makes no more sounds.

His mother sighs and rocks him tenderly. She leans down and presses soft lips to his forehead, lingering a moment, a brush of moist sweat-dampened skin.  _"You've worn me out, little baby,"_ his mother tells him privately, shifting so that she is laying back, adjusting her grip on him to keep him comfortable. She doesn't stop looking at him as if she is surprised he is there, finally in front of her, to hold and see instead of just a presence within her, eyes wide and soft with startled love.  _"Don't worry...I'm sure your daddy won't be too much longer."_ She sighs, heavily, and lifts her head so that she stares over him, at something the baby can't see. She looks tired, so very tired.

He nestles into her comfortably, and his mother indulges him, rocking and singing softly in a scratchy voice worn weary from hours of difficult childbirth. She sings old songs, children's songs, in the strange, flutelike language his mother uses, songs that lament the stars and the deep call of space. She stops singing after a while, when her voice breaks, and he makes his displeasure clear with the beginning of a cry. She soothes him with a tired hum, rocking him gently. Eventually, the both of them fall into a light doze, his mother's head falling back against the headboard and her arms slackening slightly around him, though he is comfortably placed on her chest and will not fall.

He drifts that way for a little while, until a loud commotion outside the room wakens him. Boots thump rhythmically, and a low, loud voice calls incomprehensibly. He creels in annoyance, but his mother hushes him, hopefully staring over him once more. There is a crash as something is flung open by a tall, broad-shouldered man, who rushes to his mother with heavy feet. He struggles in his mother's arms, building up to a shriek. He does not like this loud noisy person that towers over the weak, slim form of his mother.

 _"Lunar!"_ his mother gasps, and the man bends down over the baby, his face swimming into the baby's limited and blurry vision.  _"You've a son..."_ He looks like mother, with eyes that are lighter than hers and a dark crop of hair.

 _"I'm sorry, Selena,"_ says the man, and his voice is not like mother's, growling and grumbling,  _"I was caught up in a war meeting with General Pitchiner...I came as quickly as I could."_ He sounds apologetic, and his breath comes quickly in pants of exertion.

His mother inhales measuredly, but breathes out and lets it go.  _"Look, baby...it's your daddy,"_ she says instead, tipping him carefully towards the man, who leans close like he doesn't dare touch him. His father's face crinkles into a great big smile, eyes wide and sparkling with awe, his face beside his mother's, the dark solid shape of his straight shoulders tall beside his slimmer, paler mother. He looks into this new face uncertainly, but waves his arm jerkily, burbling.

His father's eyes suddenly turn glossy and he has to blink several times.  _"Selena, look!"_ he gasps excitedly,  _"Hey, there, little man...I'm your daddy, I'm your father. He's saying hello!"_

His mother chuckles, and he feels the vibration through her chest.  _"Do you want to hold him?"_ she offers, and the baby watches as his father's dark eyebrows pull into a frown of worry.

 _"I think I'll drop him,"_ says his father self-deprecatingly, and his mother smiles.  _"Of course you won't,"_ she reassures his father softly.  _"Hold your arms like this...yes, perfect."_ She leans forward and he is deposited into his father's arms. His father's arms are stiff, not daring to move in case he jars his baby. The baby yawns. He turns his face away from the bright light overhead into the warm dark of his father, fully prepared to go back to his nap.

 _"He's going to sleep!"_ his father whispers incredulously, and tries to hand him back to his mother, but she leans away and out of his sight.  _"You're doing fine,"_ she soothes.

Outside, there is the thud of booted footsteps and a quick, military knock. Something clicks and hinges protest as a door opens. There is a discreet cough from the doorway.  _"Tsar Lunanoff? Oh-"_ The new voice is low like his father's, but deeper and smoother, with an accent different to his father's. It sounds surprised and awkward.

His mother's voice is slightly panicked when she says,  _"Stars shine...sir- and, lady?"_ The baby sees her shifting up, struggling into a sitting position and swiping at her lank hair, pushing it behind her ears.

 _"Light speaks. I am General Kozmotis Pitchiner, at your service, Lady Tsarina,"_ the smooth, deep voice responds instantly. A pause.  _"My wife Lady Archaline Pitchiner."_ There is a rustle of cloth, then a soft feminine voice that sounds like mother, only with a far more coolly distinguished ring, murmurs,  _"Stars shine, my Tsar, Tsarina."_

 _"Ah, General Pitchiner!"_ says his father comfortably, rising to his feet. His stance changes slightly, and he holds his baby far more awkwardly.  _"I have a son,"_ he adds, unnecessarily, but with definite pride.  _"Lady Pitchiner,"_ he adds, his voice modulating to respect.  _"Stars shine."_

 _"Light speaks, my Tsar,"_ Lady Pitchiner responds softly, the picture of a sophisticated lady. The baby hears the swish of skirts again.

His father clears his throat. He turns apologetically back towards his mother.  _"Um- Selena-"_ He sounds very uncomfortable as he trails off, and the baby can hear the irritation in his mother's voice as she says, nonetheless warmly,  _"It is good to finally meet the man himself, General Pitchiner."_

 _"...My apologies, Lady Tsarina,"_ says the deep voice again, sounding awkward,  _"You are tired from birth, we had not known-"_

 _"Nonsense, Kozmotis. If the Tsarina doesn't mind? Tsar?"_ This voice is softer, feminine, cutting over the deep voice with ease and a subtle undercurrent of power. Slippers scuff against the floor and tall blurry shape sways towards him. His father coughs and glances to his mother, seeking permission. His mother has little choice but to agree.

 _"Of course not, Lady Pitchiner,"_ says his mother hurriedly. His father immediately proffers the baby to Lady Pitchiner. He does not struggle as he is handed over into an expert hold that cradles him comfortably, a new face moving into his vision.

This face is framed by dark waves of hair, expressive eyes framed by long lashes, full lips that part into a smile.  _"Hello, little prince,"_ croons Lady Pitchiner. Her voice is soft and soothing and he decides he likes her.  _"My Tsarina, you have born a beautiful prince. Have you named him?"_

 _"Not yet, Lady Pitchiner,"_ says his mother, uncomfortably. Lady Pitchiner moves to the bed, gently returning him to his mother's hold. His mother takes him from Lady Pitchiner gently, but Lady Pitchiner doesn't move away, instead, she dips her head and kisses his forehead. Her lips feel cool. His mother tilts her head up to look at Lady Pitchiner. Then she retreats, putting an acceptable distance between them.

 _"I remember when my little Sera was that age,"_ she sighs, and there is a conspiratorial flash in her eye and wistfulness in her voice,  _"Enjoy it while you can, they grow so fast."_ Lady Pitchiner disappears from his sight, the cloth of her skirts swishing over the floor.

 _"My Tsarina, if you would permit it...I am always at your disposal, should you require aid. Motherhood can be difficult, at first."_  Lady Pitchiner purrs.

 _"Of course, Lady Pitchiner, you are very kind,"_ his mother agrees uncertainly. She is not looking at her baby but at the other woman.

 _"Come, Kozmotis, let's give the new parents a chance to get acquainted,"_ Lady Pitchiner murmurs.

 _"My Tsar, Tsarina,"_ says the deep voice, and then there is the tramp of boots, swish of skirts and the click of a closing door, leaving his parents alone with him.

 _"What in the Constellations were they doing here? I've just given birth- I'm hardly in the position to be entertaining guests!_ _"_ his mother asks, not quite harshly enough to be a snapped demand, and he stirs uncomfortably at the irritation in her voice. He makes a distressed noise, and immediately her attention focuses on him, and she soothes him back to sleepiness tenderly.

 _"I'm sorry Selena, but I didn't know what to do with them! I shouldn't have left the meeting at all, you know that."_ His father's voice is heavy with disapproval.  _"The Fearling War-"_

_"The Fearlings are more important than your heir?"_

_"Don't be ridiculous, I cam here as fast as I could-"_ Voices are rising, and he begins to cry. Sheepishly, his mother and father halt their argument.

 _"I'm sorry,"_ his mother mutters eventually, and his father nods sharply from where he is helping her cradle him.

 _"This war changes everything...I will fight for a world where our son can be safe from Fearlings...and I need General Pitchiner to do that."_ His father paused.  _"He is a good man. A good soldier. I have every confidence in him, but he can't do it alone. Nor can we ask him to."_

 _"I understand,"_ whispers his mother, and kisses his forehead. Her eyes look very sad as she watches his father leave.


	17. Two

He dozes comfortably, enjoying the warm slant of the sun on his face. His mother rests him on her stomach, and together they watch the pale green sky blush with colours of the afternoon, darkening to warm thirsty jade, almost turquoise as it faded into white clouds. The hot eye of the sun glares down over the sprawling Celestial City, a gleaming palace of white marble and golden-tiled roofs, brightly-robed people dashing about like ants far below. He can't see any of that yet, though. His eyes are closed.

He's lying on his mother's stomach, one hand loosely fisting round a handful of her summer silk dress, pale yellow like the first opening of daffodils. Her long curly blonde hair is bound up in a simple but lovely braid over one shoulder, and she has applied a careful touch of powder to her white cheeks. The shade of the parasol casts shifting shadows over the pair of them as they lay on the intricately embroidered chaise the Tsarina has spent most of her time on since the birth, a few weeks ago. She has requested it be moved outside, so she can enjoy the summer sun. Her grey eyes are still ringed with exhaustion, but she hums to him softly and tickles his feet, making him giggle and kick.

There is a soft swish of skirts, and a maid enters, pausing respectfully a little way away from the Tsarina and her baby.  _"My Tsarina, Lady Pitchiner is here to see you."_

_"Lady Pitchiner?"_ his mother sounds surprised, and a hand flies to her hair, automatically trying to pat it down.  _"Of course- send her in,"_ she says quickly, making an effort to correct her lazy posture without jostling him.

The maid makes a sign of obeisance, and then disappears back inside the dimness of the tower. A moment later, a new woman appears in the doorway.

Where his mother is pale, Lady Pitchiner is dark.

She wears a deep, wine red dress inlaid with chasing patterns of gold over the corset. It draws in tightly over her waist, slimming her hips and accentuated by a girdle of golden thread. The skirt is long and voluminous, brushing over the stone with a tender sigh. Scarlet slippers dart out from underneath as she walks with her customary grace, a slightest hint of swing to her hips. Her shoulders are bare, although she wears sleeves that wrap firmly around her forearms. Her black hair is long and unbound, rippling down her back like a dark brown waterfall, a circlet of summery golden leaves giving her the appearance of some tempestuous fairy queen. Her eyes are brown, but dark and endless.

_"Stars shine upon you, Lady Tsarina,"_ says Lady Pitchiner, bowing her head and touching her thumb to her first two forefingers, twisting her hand over her sternum in a reverential gesture of greeting.

_"And light speak through you, Lady Pitchiner,"_ his mother responds. She makes the answering gesture, a greeting in kind, extending her palm and touching her thumb to her little finger. She hesitates, briefly, and then adds,  _"To what may I owe the pleasure...?"_ She had ordered to remain alone for the afternoon, still exhausted from a morning of battling courtiers coming to coo over the new prince Lunanoff.

_"Forgive me,_ " murmurs Lady Pitchiner,  _"but I found myself alone of an afternoon, and hoped that a visit with my benevolent ruler would cheer us both. I must beg of you that you call me Archaline."_

_"Of course,"_ asserts his mother, looking embarrassed.  _"Please sit, my lady- Archaline."_ The name sounds strange on her tongue, but Lady Pitchiner smiles and draws a chair up, settling herself upon it with perfect grace. His mother casts about for a topic of conversation, and settles on,  _"I had thought that the General was still in the city today?"_

_"Oh he is,"_ chuckles Lady Pitchiner warmly, pouring herself a glass of the light fruit juice from a jug on the table. She glances at his mother, offering to refill her glass, and the Tsarina nods thankfully.  _"I poisoned his lightwater this morning,"_ continued Lady Pitchiner cheerfully,  _"He will be unconscious until tomorrow morning."_

His mother laughs disbelievingly, realises it is not quite ladylike and covers her mouth with one hand, a faint blush on her cheeks.  _"Whyever would you do that?"_

Lady Pitchiner sighs fondly.  _"I love the man, but trying to get him to rest is like herding Fearlings. Pointless, frustrating, and extremely difficult. I have already observed him with a painted mustache courtesy of Seraphina, do not worry."_

The Tsarina giggles girlishly. She looks bright when she laughs.

_"If I may ask, my Tsarina-"_

_"-Call me Selena!"_ his mother breaks in. Archaline blinks at her, a little surprised by her temerity, and Selena flushes, embarrassed.

_"Selena."_ Archaline says, trying out her name. A rare smile curves her lips, shared and wicked.  _"I had wondered-"_ Archaline pauses, perfectly,  _"why your husband would leave you alone so soon after birth? Koz was positively limpet-like."_

Selena blushes slightly and looks down. _"My Tsar has many war meetings to attend to,"_ she says steadily, quietly, _"I can manage on my own."_

_"He must love you very much,"_ Archaline says, clearly attempting to be comforting, perhaps, and there is a gentle understanding shine in her eye.  _"I remember your courtship was ever so hush."_ A twinkle in her eye.  _"We had barely even known of your existence before you were a perfect silvery bride on his arm."_

His mother's cheeks darken and she plays with his fingers. _"There wasn't one,"_  she admits, _"I never met him before the day we were to wed. It was all arranged."_

_"Oh."_ Lady Pitchiner's reaction is relaxed, but there is a flash of something like pity in the way she looks at the young Tsarina's discomfort.  _"A shame. You missed the best part."_

_"Will- will you tell me?"_ Selena asks hesitantly, and he complains fussily as he is shifted into her arms, his mother sitting up.

_"How I met Koz?"_ Archaline chuckles. Her dark eyes glitter as she leans forward conspiratorially.  _"Of course, Selena."_

His mother blushes slightly at the unfamiliar, brazen sound of her first name. No one but Lunar has called her Selena since she was made Tsarina.

_"We met at one of your husband's balls, while he was looking for a wife, actually,"_ begins Archaline, settling back to get comfortable.  _"I was making the rounds, as you do,"_ she gestured offhandedly,  _"seeing what was new, looking for weakness like a shark."_ She smirks to show it is a joke, and Selena surprises herself by laughing.  _"Then I saw him- this poor soldier, stuffed into one of those tight dress uniforms- to be frankly honest, I spent a little longer looking at his ass than his face-"_

_"Lady Archaline!"_ yelps Selena, scandalised.

_"What?"_ says Archaline unrepentantly,  _"It's a fine ass, and he was wearing those ridiculous breeches- I've never actually seen someone pull them off before, but Koz managed. And- boots."_ She fans herself, half-closing her eyes with a sigh. Selena is blushing.  _"Thigh-high military boots. I decided he would be asking me to dance. So I walked up to him and pulled him onto the floor- he was stuttering apologies and tripping over his own feet trying to keep his eyes on my face-"_

Selena giggles behind her hand and Archaline winks.

_"-and I quickly realised he had no idea what he was doing. Four left feet and a country accent- an asteroid bumpkin if you ever saw one. For the good of the Constellations, I thought it my duty to remedy that,"_ At this, Archaline puts her hand over her heart in a mock gesture of dutiful acceptance, though her eyes are sparkling like witchfires,  _"and left him my ringcode, told him to send me a line with his own and meet me in the Willowhaven- the park, inside the city-"_ she adds, to be certain Selena is following,  _"and I taught him how to dance. He blushed and stammered his way through most of that- poor man."_

_"He didn't have a chance!"_ Selena risks, daringly, but Archaline only chuckles warmly.

_"Oh, no, Kozmotis was going to marry me since the moment I saw him on that floor trying to hide behind the drapes so the courtiers wouldn't come and pretend to fall over his chest."_

This makes Selena actually laugh, a shy light brightening her cheeks and the fallow gold of her hair. She has the distinctive print of Lunanoff descent written all over her, Archaline muses, the paleness of her skin, of her hair, of her eyes that shine softly with a light a little more than is natural, the ease of her fragile smile. Archaline has done her research- she knows the Tsarina is actually the third cousin of her husband, and they were an arranged match, more for their attractiveness as a pair than any loving qualities.

_"How did he ask you to marry him?"_ Selena asks, the warmth shining in her eyes- she has never had a woman friend before, Archaline can tell, desperately shy, desperately wanting to get closer, eager to share everything. Archaline has learned from delicate inquiries that Tsarina has no frequent visitors. As far as Archaline's advanced sources can tell- the Tsarina is alone.

A hint of her sympathy shows in her immediacy of answering.  _"Well- it took him an awful while to even understand that he was supposed to be courting me, and while I trample over most societal customs I refuse to ruin a good dress by getting down on one knee for an oblivious soldier-"_

Selena's laughter is like bell chimes and he stirs.

_"-but once he did, he disappeared off to whatever rock he was born off and came back a few weeks later covered in soot having flown for days on end to make me a promise- cuff himself in his father's forge, just as his father had done before him. Apparently it's miner culture to make the bracelet yourself. It was pretty too, he'd worked hard on it, though apparently he was a terrible blacksmith, according to his father,"_ Archaline smiles, softly, but her love for her husband is obvious in the warmth in her dark eyes, and the tender affection in her voice.  _"I keep it in my jewelry box at home,"_ she adds, coming back to the present.  _"It was all unbearably romantic. We got married on a spaceship surrounded by stars somewhere above Illinois..."_

Selena sighs, quietly, and it's only a small sound but it breaks the moment, and Archaline takes a sip of her drink, composing herself. There is a light flush to Selena's cheeks still.

_"I was glad when our wedding was over,"_ admits the Tsarina.  _"It was so big, so loud."_

_"He loves you, though,"_ Archaline reassures, gently.  _"You know that?"_

His mother rocks him, stroking his head, and Archaline takes the hint and begins to coo over the little prince lovingly.

Neither of them mention that Selena hasn't answered the oblique question.


	18. Three

She holds him in her arms- the skimmer's seats aren't adjusted for a baby. He is lulled by her warmth and dozes fitfully as the skimmer's pilot manoeuvres them expertly between the towering skyscrapers of the Celestial City, high gleaming walls of marble enamelled with gold inlay depicting beautiful, giggling stars and noble warriors. They have left the Towers of the Moon where the royal family live behind, but still they dominate the green sky, stern white pillars in the distance.

The low humming buzz of the skimmer's engine cuts out as they slide to a smooth stop in the private docking bay in front of the Pitchiners' city residence. The skimmer pilot switches on his comm and unnecessarily informs his Tsarina they have arrived, uniformed chest still thrown out in pride from being first to transport the young prince.

His mother rises nervously, smoothing her pale blue dress down and adjusting her grip on him. She swallows, and he watches her white neck move the fine sparkling sapphires she wears. She smiles at him, beautiful as ever, and steps gracefully from the skimmer onto the small port, taking one of her guards' offer of assistance with a shy smile.

The two guards fall to either side of her, their expressions blank under their silver helmets, as she ascends the sweeping steps up to the opening portal of the residence, which looms above- significantly smaller than the wing at the Towers of the Moon of course, but still rich and imposing enough to convey the Pitchiners' immense wealth.

The portal opens before she reaches it, and a scraping maid hurries to perform the necessary obeisances and greetings, that the Tsarina responds to awkwardly enough. She still feels uncomfortable receiving such respect from the average folk.

"If you could inform the Lady Pitchiner-" she begins to ask, but she is interrupted by a ringing voice, cold and clear like a bell, from the top of the stairs.

"My dear Tsarina!"

The entrance room is impressive enough, leading into a parlour and drawing attention to the winding staircases that lead to the upper levels. It is at this raised position the Lady herself stands, garbed in what appears to the Tsarina's eyes as liquid, shimmering dark gold. She gasps in shock, a soft audible noise that echoes and makes her flush with embarrassment. Archaline smiles, cold and lovely like a knife-edge. She descends the stairs slowly, her dark eyes glinting.

"Stars shine, Lady Selena," she murmurs once she is closer, dipping into the expected courtesies, and with a soft smile, "Stars shine, my prince!"

Selena's answering smile is bright and glad, too warm for the reserved chill of court. "Light speaks L- Archaline," she catches herself just in time, and her pink blush is too obvious on her white, pale skin. She smiles down at him, shifting him so that when Archaline draws close, she can look down into his eyes.

The baby giggles at her playfully and waves his chubby fists.

"He truly does have the look of his father," Archaline comments, her eyes catching his mother's own grey ones. "Of both parents, I suppose," she hums, glancing underneath her eyelashes, "The Tsar and Tsarina have similar enough colouring."

Selena's blond hair, so pale it seems to shine, shimmers as she ducks her head, not certain how to take the compliment.

Archaline leads her into the parlour, and Selena hurries to dismiss her guards to stand post at the door, leaving the two women alone with the baby. Archaline lays down a fine cushion on the floor for his mother to place him, and takes a seat, pouring Selena a glass of distilled lightwater without having to ask. Blushing, Selena thanks her.

"I had not expected you," Archaline says candidly, "It is a pleasant surprise."

His mother's cheeks seem to be seared constantly red as she avoids Archaline's eyes, not quite able to look at her. She itches with curiosity, her eyes darting to the mysterious, glittering substance of Archaline's garment- dress was too poor a word, it seemed to flow and conform to her every movement, and dusted her arms and shoulders.

"I had had reports-" she breaks off, takes a sip, fortifies herself. "That General Pitchiner was out of the city, I had wondered if you desired company-" She trails off, awkward.

Archaline takes pity on her and says smoothly, "I expect even the Towers of the Moon become boring after a while." Their eyes catch for a moment and Archaline's ruby lips curve into a smirk. "Yes- Kozmotis is gone." She breathes a over-exaggerated sigh of martyred patience. "Off being a General, leaving my bed all cold and alone."

Selena doesn't seem to quite know what to say to that, blushing furiously and blinking. Likely, thinks Archaline with a touch of amusement, none have ever been so forward with her. She continues to give Selena time to recover herself. "I do swear Seraphina becomes twice as difficult the moment he steps out of the door," she huffs, with genuine exhaustion, "we'll be relocating to the Orion house soon, and all she talks about is the star skiff Koz promised her..." She shakes her head fondly. "I doubt I'll see a strand of hair once we arrive."

"It seems he gets bigger every minute," laughs Selena, gesturing at her baby. He blinks at her and yawns. She is eager to share conversation with her- friend? Yes, she thinks, looking consideringly at Archaline, they are friends, aren't they? Selena wants them to be. "Lunar calls him Manny, as in, Man in the Moon," she complains.

"Oh dear!" Archaline chuckles, covering her lips delicately with her hand. "I do hope you named him well?"

"Lunar insisted he take the family name," Selena says, and Archaline sips her lightwater with a brief smile.

"Stars know if Kozmotis tried to name our daughter anything ridiculous I would have stopped him."

"Lunar doesn't-" Selena appears to realise she's said too much, because she cuts off immediately and glances away, a heavy blush staining her cheeks.

Archaline sets her glass down and smooths out the folds of her dress. At Selena's inquiring glance, she finally elaborates, "Beautiful, isn't it?" Selena nods. "I was gifted it by a star pilot by the name of Captain Chandra Mansnoozie. It's spun of starsand." She smiles fondly in memory. "Very dear fellow."

Selena inhales, shocked. A gift of starsand from a star pilot himself? "What ever did you do?"

Glancing at her slyly, Archaline purrs, "Come now, my dear Tsarina, I must keep  _some_ secrets." She looks very pleased with herself.

"I'm surprised the General lets you wear another man's gifts so brazenly," Selena says lightly, "Especially with," she blushes, "the, um-"

"Reputation of star pilots?" chuckles Archaline, and Selena nods uncomfortably. Archaline leans forward and takes Selena's hand, making the young Tsarina jump in shock. Archaline's touch is gentle and friendly, her painted nails dark against Selena's pale skin. "Selena, the Tsar is your husband, and you are his Tsarina." She smiles. "Kozmotis would never dare tell me what I should and should not do- I spend my life reminding the poor man to buckle his shoes before he leaves. Even the most headstrong and proud of all men can be trained."

She releases Selena's hand and leans back with a smile that abruptly reminds Selena of a lounging, satisfied cat. "You have a gift. Your beauty means that men will always look to you, and the heir you have borne gives you an advantage, he cannot ever discard you. You can build your own power- as Tsarina, many will listen to you. Also-" She shrugs, in an elegant, light-hearted way, "You are young! Find out what you enjoy. No need for you to be chained down so early."

"I wouldn't-" Selena coughs nervously with shaking hands. "I- I couldn't do what you do. I mean- look at you!" She gestures to encompass Archaline's lazy, dangerous attractiveness, the rich robe she wears proof of her manipulative skill.

"To control a man, you need nothing more than his eye and bed. What you feel for him is irrelevant."

"I don't want to have to control him!" Selena bursts out passionately. She flushes in shame but determinedly keeps going. "He's never- ever since I had Mim, he looks at me like I'm some sort of-" she swipes her hand through her hair restlessly. "I- it's nothing like the stories say, is it? Come in, sweep you off your feet- whirlwind courtship..." She seems to recognise how childish she sounds, and her hands ball into her lap as she hunches her shoulders.

"My dear Selena..." Archaline's voice is soft, wistful. "If there is any creature that deserves a starstory, it is you." She leans forward and a slim hand tips up Selena's chin, the understanding of her smile enough to banish the welling tears.

"It's- it's so,  _boring,"_ Selena whispers harshly, taken aback by her own daring. "I just lie there- and wait for it to be over. I mean- he hasn't since Mim..." she utters a slightly hysterical laugh. "Is it bad I'm thankful my husband doesn't find me attractive? When he's with me I wish he would just hurry up and leave so I can read a book or- or do something interesting..."

"Oh, believe me I understand," Archaline says, a little darkly. Her eyes cloud with a memory of the past, and she smiles painfully. "I was married, before Kozmotis, you know. An older man. The lord of Polaris."

Selena blinks. She can't remember any knowledge of a Lord Polaris, not widowed, anyway.

"When I was fourteen." A grim quirk of the lips at Selena's shock. "He would force himself upon me, when he was not busy with other women in the adjoining chamber." She lowers her voice and glances at the door. "I mixed poison into his restorative draughts and watched him die choking on his own vomit."

Selena gapes. Archaline closes her mouth with her finger.

"I stole his fortune and name, and used it to build myself a position in court, where as you know I came to meet Kozmotis." The steel in her eyes tempers to warmth, and somehow Selena feels as if she is privy to the depth of Archaline love for her husband for the first time, deep and tender like the endless embrace of night. There is no doubt that Archaline loves her husband with all her heart, the softness in her eyes and the warmth in her smile when she speaks of him is nothing that can be faked.

"I- you killed him? You were fourteen!" whispers Selena intently, and Archaline winks, her cool and effortless persona sliding back into place with ease.

"They teach you to be a pretty doll, to lie back and let the men do the work," Archaline tells her, drinking her lightwater, unaffected by the bombshell she has just dropped. "But you don't have to. By all means, be his perfect doll in public. He won't know- you are a smart girl- if you are less than angelic in private. Find out what you enjoy. Take lovers. Any man would be blind to not want you." She smirks. "Perhaps you could track down a friendly star pilot. I hear they're  _generous._ "

Selena laughs, the light-heartedness is somehow restored. She pauses. "Did you actually- you know- sleep with the star captain?"

"Of course not," says Archaline, unperturbed. "We shared some fine wine and had a lovely long chat about his younger brother. He talked for simply hours; it was a very pleasant evening."

Frowning, Selena attempts to detect whether Archaline is lying or not. Archaline is impossible to read, a perfect small smile on her lips, her dark eyes dancing wickedly with amusement. Selena gives up. Archaline runs political circles around her- it's obvious.

So instead she smiles and picks up her glass. She suddenly eyes it and asks- "Did you poison this?"

"You're learning, dear," says Lady Pitchiner proudly.

The Tsarina gives her a suspicious look.

Archaline just laughs.


	19. Four

He is old enough now to fuss in boredom throughout the long ride to the Orion constellation. It's a familiar trip, but his young mind is as transfixed as it ever is by the spinning stars he can see out of the viewport from his crib. He watches the swirls of the galaxy until he gets bored and then cries for his mother to pick him up.

She drifts over from the other viewport, the one that faces their rapidly approaching destination, and hushes him absently. She looks worried and tired, although her hair is done up in an intricate fashion, woven with silver sea shells and priceless jewellery. Her silver gown puffs into a wide skirt that brushes the floor, her white slippers darting out. She looks both young and innocent, a perfect, shining maiden, the lustre her ancestry lends only brightens her.

"Nearly there, Mim," she says softly, and her delicate hands grip the viewport's sill desperately. "Then you can see Lady Archaline again. You'd like that, wouldn't you? It's been a while, since the Pitchiners moved all the way out here on this isolated moon." She sighs.

She's developed this habit of talking to him even more now, all by themselves in the Towers of the Moon. He hasn't seen any other face but hers and a few servants for a long while now, and they've stayed inside the familiar rooms. Sometimes she holds him and her eyes run with water. He doesn't like that, he can feel the sadness surrounding her like a cloak.

"My Tsarina, we will be docking shortly," a guard, one of the tall, furred Pooka, grim and serious with long ears they never let him pull, tells his mother, and she nods briefly.

"Thank you, Captain Aracorn," says his mother, and the guard closes the door again.

His mother picks him up, settling him against her comfortably and humming a soft, familiar tune. She rocks him as the ship pierces the small atmospheric shield with a shudder, hurtling towards the dock. It taxies into position, the pilot nudging them expertly down alongside the gleaming hulls of the other starships the Pitchiners keep. His mother counts them carefully.

"The General isn't home," she tells him lightly, and he wonders what she is thinking as her eyes grow considering.

This time, Lady Pitchiner is waiting for them when they disembark, her daughter at her side. Seraphina does not look pleased to be there- a pretty girl, with long tangled dark hair pushed rebelliously behind her ears, a green dress and bright brown eyes. She takes after her father, in features, but her coffee complexion is all her mother. Archaline is the picture of grace and refined beauty beside her, dressed in a gown the colour of the night chased with red like sin, and the disparity between mother and stubbornly mulish daughter has never been more obvious.

"Stars shine, my Tsarina," greets Archaline smoothly, "Welcome to our residence."

"Light speaks, Lady Pitchiner," responds his mother. She smiles gladly at Archaline, seeming not to care that her guards and Seraphina are witness to her happiness to see her friend. If she does not hold him, he thinks she might hug the other woman.

His mother settles him against her hip when Archaline proffers her arm. The austere woman dismisses her daughter, who after shooting him a curious glare- Seraphina has not seen many babies- dashes off in a spray of dust. Not long after, a small gleaming skiff shoots towards the twisting rocks that claw the far side of the moon, providing the perfect space-field for a little girl to practise her acrobatic flying. Lady Pitchiner watches the skimmer go with a little sigh.

"She'll kill herself on those rocks one day," Archaline worries quietly, her head of straight dark hair inclined towards Selena's pale one confidentially. "Kozmotis just encourages her, but he's never here to see what she's doing." She sighs, exhausted. "I end up being the bad mother trying to control her life...and we've already had to move out here, away from all her friends in the city."

"You're not a bad mother," Selena protests loyally. "I can see from just how you are with Mim."

Archaline pats Selena's hand, and his mother swallows slightly, maybe it's the warmly affectionate shine in Archaline's dark eyes, the gleam of her eyelashes, lightly curling under a fine layer of oil, maybe it's knowing her sly and clever friend enjoys her company, maybe it's because it's been weeks since she last saw Archaline, and she's somewhat forgotten how compelling she can be.

"Babies are easy, my dear Selena," sighs Archaline ruefully. "Pray I won't live to see your Mim become as much trouble as Sera. She's a good child, but headstrong. She has my mind and her father's heart..."

"Well I should hope that you live to see Mim have children," says Selena tartly, tightening her hold just slightly around Archaline's arm. The other woman laughs.

They both ignore Selena's two guards as they ascend the sweeping steps into the Pitchiner villa, a maze of white marble and fluted pillars hanging with rich tapestries and drapes. Archaline's stamp is strong- the cool gleam of the marble is offset by sumptuous, dark scarlet pillows and sensuously draped golden hangings around the arched windows. The air is thick and warm with incense. Archaline leads her up the main entrance's steps, up to the higher levels and then into an adjoining sitting room, which catches the sun. The sitting room is roughly circular, decorated in creams and soft golds, and has a marble balcony which opens to the sky, darkening now that afternoon deepens. There is a carafe of wine on the low walnut table between two fluffy, cream couches, and crystal goblets already waiting.

"Wine?" Archaline offers. Selena nods hesitantly. She's not had much wine before, and she doesn't really like the taste, but it seems juvenile to ask for a fruit juice or water. She looks around for a place to put him, wincing as her arms protest. He's a bit heavier than a newborn now. He gurgles at her cheerfully.

"Here," murmurs Archaline, directing her to a crib already waiting. Selena blinks in surprise, smiling in gratefulness. She puts him down. "I saw you coming, I thought it best to dig this out." The crib is handsome- fine dark wood carved with serpents and vines. "It was Sera's."

"It's beautiful," says Selena. Archaline smiles.

"My brother hand-carved it," she said lightly, and Selena's eyes widen.

"I didn't know you have a brother," she says, and strokes the wood with new reverence. It's easily of master quality, and she feels a brief pang of sadness. None of Mim's fine new things have any emotional attachment, the finest money could buy, evidently, but no sentiment attached.

"Like the rest of my marriage," she mutters, too quietly for Archaline to hear.

"I don't anymore," says Archaline carelessly. "He died when I was fourteen. He was carving it for my unborn sibling."

"Oh! That's awful. I'm sorry."

"Don't be. It was two decades ago." Her tone is cold and her eyes shuttered. Selena swallows and abruptly remembers that Archaline had been fourteen when she had first married, fourteen when she'd killed a man. She eyes Archaline's proud profile. Killed a man for the first time, anyway...

"I have no siblings," she says quietly, smiles wistfully. Her childhood had been a lonely sort, sheltered. She'd been glad when, at sixteen, she'd met her husband, marrying him less than a year later.

"I can't imagine you as solitary," Archaline tells her with a slightly wicked gleam in her eye. She leans against the balustrade of the balcony, her wineglass held delicately in one hand, the deepening light catching on the highlights of her dark attire, corset, black skirt with shimmering scarlet over it. Rubies gleam at her throat like drops of blood, her shoulders are bare again, but for elbow length lace gloves- black, of course. Her hair is unadorned, and flows loose.

Selena joins her, a perfect contrast, girlish neckline and pure white dress with a loose skirt and hint of a train, tight sleeves around her pale arms, bodice strewn with silver, hair woven with precious shining metal back into an elegant bun, a few curls of blonde escaped. She looks almost like a lost child bride next to the sleek, fitting Lady Pitchiner.

"I was," she says nervously, fidgeting with her wine glass. She puts it on the balustrade awkwardly, and her hands join in front of her demurely, a pose learned over hugging herself. She glances shyly up from beneath her eyelashes at Archaline, who looks down on her with a deep and private amusement, and a little pity. "I think you're my only friend."

Archaline blinks slightly at the confession, but then something thaws in her dark eyes and without further word she sets her glass aside and takes Selena into her arms. It is only meant to be a brief embrace, a tangible proof of her thanks for the touching comment- Archaline is not the sort of woman who has friends. Alliances, enemies, acquaintances, and her beloved husband. The young and naïve Tsarina is none of these. Archaline is not sure where this puts them; she thinks she can accept  _friends._

Selena hesitates for a bare second, confused, before her mind registers what is happening and she launches herself at Archaline's stiff frame. Awkwardly, Lady Pitchiner pats her back as Selena begins to cry into her shoulder. It starts slow, shaking shoulders, sniffles, but then Archaline blinks in shock as she feels tears against her skin.

He watches them silently, lulled into dozing. Archaline strokes soothing circles against Selena's back, seeming a little lost for words. She looks uncharacteristically uncomfortable, Selena's pale form nestled against her own, tears against her shoulder, that it takes her a moment to realise the smaller and younger girl is apologising.

"Sorry," Selena gasps, "I'll- I'm sorry." She leans back slightly, offering to remove herself from the hug while making it clear she would rather not.

Archaline smiles slightly oddly and says slowly, "It's fine. You simply took me unawares."

Selena gives her a watery smile. "Dangerous?"

"Very," responds Archaline, eager to get back into more familiar territory, cocking her head with a slight hint of a smirk playing on her ruby lips. "I nearly stabbed you with the knife up my sleeve."

"What sleeve?" asks Selena, resting her forehead back against Archaline's shoulder. She doesn't seem inclined to let go, despite Archaline's discomfort.

"It's hidden somewhere," Archaline says mysteriously, and Selena snorts an undignified laugh. She immediately hides her face, blushing, but there is a hint of relief in Archaline's eyes now that Selena is happier once more.

They stand there for a little while longer, Selena fitting comfortably in Archaline's arms, breathing in the scent of her perfume and trying not to notice Archaline's back stiffening and the tenseness in her frame only getting worse the longer Selena clings to her. She knows she should let go- Archaline is clearly uncomfortable, but the gentle embrace is so unlike the forceful grip of her husband or the half-remembered, unwanted and stiff hugs her parents sometimes gave her as a child she can't help but want it to last forever. Discreetly, she touches the laces of Archaline's corset, mapping the criss-crossing pattern. Archaline smells like vanilla and musk.

She tilts her face up to look at Archaline, who blinks and looks down at her. This close, Selena can see the careful application of her make-up, bronze powder over her high cheekbones, ruby lipstick, kohl around her dark eyes, a shimmer on her eyelids. Impulsively, she leans up and kisses the dark red lips.

He watches, confused, as Archaline jerks in Selena's arms, clearly surprised, her eyes wide. Suddenly realising what she has done, Selena pulls away, backing away until she hits the balustrade, her hand flying to her lips. She is blushing furiously. There is a smear of Archaline's lipstick on her mouth.

"I- I-" she stammers, lost for words, and shame is settling heavily over her, he can feel it. He begins to cry in distress, but his mother makes no move, frozen in place and staring at Archaline. Tension thrums in the air like a drumbeat.

Lady Pitchiner touches her lips delicately, looking down at her fingers as if she expects some sort of smear. Nonchalantly, she takes a small tube of lipstick out of a cupboard and applies it flawlessly. Selena stares at her in silence, fidgeting, waiting to be thrown out.

"I'm sorry," she finally manages to whisper, and her voice is cracked and weak, straining with the effort of holding back tears.

"Don't be," says Archaline, unconcerned. She picks him up and hushes him soothingly. He blinks at her with wide grey eyes so like his father's.

"You have Kozmotis- we're married, I- I have no idea what I was thinking- oh, stars-" Selena yanks at her hair. There are tears in her eyes, and shame blazes her skin ugly red. "I'll just- we'll go-" She takes a few awkward steps to the cradle, but Archaline is still holding her baby, watching her stutter.

"Don't be," Archaline repeats. "Selena. You have done nothing to be ashamed of."

"I- I- how can you say that?" Selena whispers, appalled.

"You are exploring," says Archaline. She places him back in the crib and crosses the room to stand before Selena, whose shoulders are hunched and she is looking away, her cheeks still seared red. She jumps a little when Archaline gently tugs her chin up to look at her. "You are discovering what and who you like. There's no shame in that." She closes her eyes for a brief moment, and when she opens them, the familiar twinkle in her eye is back. "And I'm flattered you chose me, in all honesty."

"It's  _more_ than that," Selena whispers intently, then flushes, "But- I- you- Kozmotis-"

Archaline inhales, like a painful suspicion has been made clear.

"Yes, Kozmotis." Archaline sighs. "I love him dearly. I am flattered, Selena. And..." she pauses, debating which words to use. It's a delicate subject. "...were I unwed, and a few years younger, I would gladly take you up on it." For a brief moment, her eyes flick to Selena's lips. "But I have Kozmotis, and I would never do anything to hurt him. If he ever found out...it would hurt him, Selena."

She pulls out a kerchief and gently dabs at the lipstick on Selena's face, removing it with an expert touch. Selena still can't meet her eyes, though she blushes at Archaline's words.

"You are too beautiful a creature...I fear I would destroy you."

Selena shuffles forward, moving slowly, and cautiously leans against Archaline in a sad hug, resting her head against her shoulder, like a child seeking affection. Archaline begins fixing Selena's hair.

"The people will hate me," she whispers. Her voice is bitter. "Highborn women aren't supposed to love women."

Archaline chuckles. "My dear Selena. The wives of Generals and Tsars will ever just be a footnote in history. In a book of his deeds, I will be nothing more than a sentence, a faceless, nameless entity, nothing more than Kozmotis' wife and mother of his daughter. You will ever be nothing more than an addition to your husband's name. The women of the world are forgotten by history, rejected by sagas. You will not be remembered for what you do now but for what your husband does." She tucks a strand of hair behind Selena's ear and rests her hands on her shoulders, looking down at her with an odd sort of pride.

"Love women," said Archaline fiercely. "Love women, be strong. Don't allow what they expect you to be, what they want you to be because it's easy, convenient for them, dictate who you are." She kisses Selena's forehead tenderly. "Don't ever be ashamed. And don't ever let them see you cry." She smiles sadly. "They're not worth it."

Selena fights a sob. She crosses her arms tightly over her stomach, painfully, trying desperately hard to swallow her tears. Archaline strokes her cheek and steps back, putting needed distance between them. She hesitates. "Friends?"

Selena gives her a slightly incredulous look. "Yes, yes, you still want-?"

"Of course." Archaline smiles.

"I wish-" Selena's voice cracks.

"I know," says Archaline quietly. Her silence is regret enough.


	20. Five

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...sorry.

“My Tsarina.” Captain Aracorn looks remorseful, quiet.

“Yes?” she looks up, putting aside the book she had been reading to him.

The Pooka shifts. “There's been an attack.”

Selena's world shatters.

* * *

 

“ _ARCHALINE!”_

The scream is horrified, visceral, cutting like glass through the still air. A figure detaches itself from the crowd of guards by the dock and runs, snow white dress whipping around her ankles, drops to the ground beside a cold and twisted corpse, blood everywhere, her skull cracked, red ropes of scarlet stained black hair, and _stars_ it isn't Archaline, it can't be-

The baby prince whines. Awkwardly, the guard holding him in his armoured arms- the armour is _cold,_ and _hard,_ and he doesn't like it- hushes him. The guard is staring helplessly at his Tsarina, they all are.

Lady Pitchiner's twisted body splays out on the marble like a broken doll, cracked skull mixing brain matter, blood, bone and fragments of glass across the clear clean stone. The red of her blood is shockingly bright, shockingly vibrant, red and wet and staining the white of her dress as she stumbles to the floor, sight blurring and aware of somewhere, someone screaming, just a name, over and over- _oh stars no please help me get up no Archaline “ARCHALINE! ARCHALINE!”_

Frantically, Selena touches her, tries to lift her, shake her, but her head seems to just slide apart and Selena gags in horror, Archaline's blood all over her, and suddenly with a sickening lurch she knows she's going to throw up, she should move, get away from the- _Archaline,_ from _Archaline who can't be dead-_

“You stupid girl!” An iron grip wrenches around her arm, hauls Selena away. She kicks and screams, stumbles into her captor- Kozmotis, eyes hard and grieving and broken somehow, bags under his eyes and pale skin and he looks so old, so tired, aged already without her- “You stupid girl!” he roars again, “The Fearlings-” He's wrecked, and the memory is disjointed, rough, Mim is feeling the emotions running high, pain and loss and fear and so much soul-rending _hurt_ and _confusion_ and- “- still be inside the body!” _body her body no stop it's not true_  
Mim screams. He screams and screams and over it he can hear his mother screaming, Kozmotis shouting, the guards looking on, lost and helpless.

The magic, when it comes, is like the crack of a whip, silver-bright and powerful, bodily throwing the general away from the Tsarina, who stands panting over the dead, broken and bloody body of Lady Archaline Pitchiner with lunar-bright eyes blazing with fury and loss. The area goes dead-silent, apart from Kozmotis Pitchiner's quiet groan as he picks himself up from the dark scar, almost thirty feet away from Archaline's body.

Tsarina Lunanoff looks almost mad, breathing harshly, the glow of her pale skin and hair amplified until she shines all over with a cold radiance, deadly and innocent, splayed fingertips still dripping lunar-magic. Her eyes turn hard and cold, and without looking back at the wreckage of the woman she loves, she almost runs, quick, hurried steps, snatching her baby out of the guards arms and ordering through a cold, emotionless voice, “Take me back to the Towers of the Moon.”

The guards are wary of her, complying immediately to her every whim and shying from the still-present glow of magic suffusing her skin. The whole way back she holds him and stares glassily at the hull of the ship, eyes blank and shuttered and not fully there. Eventually, the glow of magic fades from her skin. She's so still she looks like she's barely breathing.

She ignores them. She ignores them all and holds her baby stiffly, rigidly, looking down into his face like she doesn't quite recognise him. He cries and reaches for her face but all she does is ignore him.

When they dock, a guard has to hold her by the elbow and guide her into the entrance. She seems to dimly recognise her surroundings. Mim's wail is the only thing that splits the dead, horrified silence as servants stop and stare as their blood covered mistress, white dress stained scarlet with another woman's blood, her baby screeching in her arms, ignored, eyes hollow and sightless as she drifts, like a ghost, straight past the demanding questions of her husband up to her rooms.

Once the door is clicked shut behind her, she sinks down to the floor in a billow of blood-soaked lace. He trails off into hiccuping sobs, not understanding why she continues to pretend like he doesn't even exist.

A single tear curves down her cheek, and Tsarina Lunanoff begins to weep.

 


	21. Six

Something has changed, and he does not like it.

He doesn't have the greatest amount of experience to fall back on, but even as a baby his line's powerful magic is strong in him, and he can feel the ebb and flow of her emotions like a whisper in his ear. Before, they were warm, comforting, motherly, and in return he was happy too. Now, they are dark and still, endless and deep, and he does not like the confusing, intricate bitterness she is burdened with now. She still holds him, smiles, and sings him songs, but now they are evil, unhappy songs, songs that curl into his ears like poison, and her smiles are cold and ruthless.

There is something dark that is changing his mother, and he does not like it.

He has seen no other face but hers for a long time. He spends his days dozing comfortably in his cot, watching the skies turn outside the windows of the Towers of the Moon, the protective, enclosing wards shimmering around them. Most of the time she sits next to him, her knees drawn to her chest and her cheek resting on one knee, drawing pretend-patterns on the carpet with blank, blank eyes that sting with tears. He does not like it when she cries, but nothing he can do makes it stop.

He is constantly fussy, on edge from her fraying temper, and sometimes it snaps. She puts him in his cot and screams, gripping her hair at the roots and yanking fistfuls out, howling until she bleeds and the guards hammer on the door,  _"Lady Selena? Lady Selena?"_ He only ever hears his father once, and the sound of his voice sends his mother into such a rage that she physically breaks apart her dresser, splinters embedded in her lily-white hands and blood staining her dress.

He does not like the shouting, but the stillness afterwards is worse.

She lies there, staring at her bloody hands. She watches the blood drip between her fingers, motionless, and even his loudest screams can't rouse her. Her eyes glow silver then, lunar-bright. Sometimes she paces, muttering, bumping into walls. Other times she spends whole days locked in the bathroom scrubbing and scrubbing at her pale hands until the skin is raw and bleeding. She holds him close after, always regretful, always guilty,  _"It just won't come off, Mim. It just won't come off. She's staining me, the blood won't come off."_

A Pooka comes, dressed in long green robes and with a kind look in his old eyes. He sits outside the door for a whole week before his mother lets him in. The Pooka doctor lets him pull his ears and makes him laugh, and his presence seems to bring a bubbly spring warmth into the draughty old dusty chambers. For the first time in a long time his mother gets dressed, and bathes, and does her make-up. The Pooka asks gentle questions about his mother's health and gives her a small blue bottle to help her sleep. It works. She has no nightmares.

The next night his mother pours it down the drain slowly. But she has learned how to smile and pretend and sometimes she lets the servants in to clean, periodically. His father does not visit. The servants speak in quiet tones about the Tsar taking up rooms in the West Wing, and these rooms never being solely occupied. His mother sits in her brocaded chair by the window and plaits her hair, endlessly, picking it apart with nimble fingers only to weave it again, humming tunelessly the whole time. Her eyes stare into nowhere. She sings the same song once, twice, again and again.

One day, his mother strokes the small lock of pure white hair he has growing on his forehead and leans close to his small ear. Her lips brush his skin as she whispers, like a filthy secret,  _"He killed her, you know. Kozmotis. If she hadn't loved him, she would still be alive."_

* * *

The Pitchiners' funeral is well-attended. Many of the guests do not know one another, and there are more than a few anonymous faces in the crowd. Kozmotis stands isolated at the front, resplendent in his military armour. He does not wear colours of mourning, and the reactions of the crowd are anywhere between shock and grudging respect. Kozmotis' attire reflects his personal dedication to ending the Fearling War that has taken his family from him.

There are no bodies to burn, so instead dolls are constructed, white cloth with masked faces and locks of dark hair, covered in flowers and carried on light wooden poles lashed together with willow matting by the Sisters of the Dead, shuffling, crow-masked women with dark cowls and robes. The scent of incense and heavy perfume is strong.

The gathering of finely dressed nobles stand back, in a small ring around the centre. Overhead, the sky is overcast, and trees rustle mournfully. A stream hurries past at the edges of the clearing, and purple-barked and yellow-leafed trees reach curiously towards the proceedings. The pyre is already built, unlit and splashed with oil.

His mother stands respectfully a few paces back from close family friends. She holds him in her arms, humming gently to him when he begins to fuss. She is dressed in a gown of black, her pale colouring making her look like some sort of ghost and highlighting the hollows of her cheeks and eyes. Her husband stands uncomfortably, stiffly beside her, dressed in dark silver ceremonial robes. They do not touch.

The dolls are laid upon the pyre, and one of the sisters hands a torch to Kozmotis. He steps forward and touches it first to the feet of his wife's representation, then that of his daughter. His face is hard and cold, but his jaw clenches when he sets Seraphina's pyre alight.

 _"Your light has spoken,"_ intones a Sister, raising her dark robed arms. Her fellows form a circle around the pyre, raising their arms to that their gloved hands touch.  _"Now may your stars guide us, guard us, and illuminate our own."_ The other sisters echo the words like a haunting refrain. The sisters all reach within to a pouch within their robes and take out a fistful of powder. Simultaneously, they throw the powder onto the flames, which makes them roar up suddenly with a flash of greenish smoke. The heightened fires burn like wildfire, quickly reducing the pyre towards ash.

_"Shine upon us, Archaline, wife of Kozmotis Pitchiner, Lord High General of the Constellations, wife of Cirris Polaris, Governor of Mesa, born of Mesa, daughter of Archwren the weaver and Kallin the carpenter, sister of four, the flautist, the dancer and the viper."_

A few shift at this naming, their eyebrows raising, but nevertheless, the audience obediently murmur, _"Shine upon us."_

_"Shine upon us, Seraphina, daughter of Lady Archaline of Mesa and Kozmotis Pitchiner, Lord High General of the Constellations, only child, spirited and clever girl."_

_"Shine upon us."_

The Sisters leave after that, and a few of the guests drift away. Some stay a little while, but eventually even the Tsar makes his excuses and departs. The Tsarina remains, watching the silhouette of Kozmotis silently. Her jaw is tight and there is a terrible  _something_ in her eyes, something cold and dark and empty.

"Stars shine upon you, my Tsarina,"the smooth voice comes as a surprise and she jumps, looking to all sides with her hand flying to her mouth. Her hold on him tightens a fraction and he rouses slightly. She looks down and blushes.

It's a star pilot, deep orange all over, with characteristic long hair brushed free of tangles into a sleek wave of copper, a suggestive warmth in his eye and hint of smirk to his lazy smile. He takes her hand in a dry, hot grasp and kisses her knuckles, looking up at her with his powerful ocherous eyes. He is dressed in the dark blue jumpsuit most star pilots wear, three gold stripes denoting his high rank and showing him to be one of the best the brotherhood of pilots has to offer. He gives her an openmouthed, slow smile. "My name is Chandrassar Mansnoozie."

"Chandra!" she exclaims, delightedly, a hint of her blush still in the rose of her cheeks. "Archaline says-" She halts, and her face falls.

Chandra makes no comment of her slip, covering it with grace. "I see my reputation precedes me."

"Ah-yes, it did," she says uncomfortably, the words coming rusty and awkward from her. She has not truly spoken for a long time.

"It is said that you were closest to the fair lady before her death." He releases her hand and tilts his head. "Closer even- perhaps, then her own husband?"

The Tsarina blinks and then her cheeks light up in a brilliant flush that immediately looks suspect to the chuckling star. "I- we- how dare you suggest such a thing?" She hisses, incensed and stung and a little bitter.

"I suggested only the love of friends, my lady," Chandra says softly, "though your unspoken wishes tell me all I need to know."

"What are you talking about?" she demands.

In response, he simply smiles. There is a wistfulness and understanding there that she abruptly finds infuriating. She draws herself up, ready to dismiss herself, but his next words and the calculated desperation that accompanies them halts her.

"I know I have no right to ask such a thing of you, my lady Tsarina. But I would know one thing of you- what was it, truly, that drove Lady Archaline Pitchiner to leap from that window, and Seraphina to crash her ship upon the rocks?" His eyes meet hers and suddenly she sees reflected there a kindred spirit, cold in his rage and fiery in his passion. "We were good friends," he says, without prompting. "I would know, so that I may know who is responsible, if there is one to blame." There is a hint of threat implied there. She wonders, with some mocking amusement, what a sleepy star pilot, the gentlest race of all, could possibly do to take vengeance on someone. Make them oversleep for work?

Her eyes lift to Kozmotis, and she can't help a slight sneer. The stoic General looks as cold as ever, and bitterly Selena's eyes turn glassy. She hesitates, glancing at the capable-looking, despite his race, star pilot, who tilts his head, his titian hair rippling around him, as if he knows what she is thinking. Frankly it's a little disturbing. There's no confusion as to why he and Archaline had apparently been good friends.

"The official report says a fearling attack drove the Lady to flee by the window, and hijacked also the young mistress' skiff, accounting for the ship debris found scattered among the rocks, and scratches of paint against the sides of a rocky gorge."

Chandra looks at her intently, his eyes seeming to pick apart her every secret. He knows that she thinks more than what she says, but before he has the chance to speak, their small, private conversation is interrupted by a thud and flurry of apologies. Chandra glances behind him and sighs.

A young star pilot- no, a trainee, he has no stripes at his shoulder- has somehow knocked the General staggering, who is taken aback and startled out of his mournful thoughts. The eager trainee is glowing erratically bright gold with mortification, bright like a miniature sun, his face a halo and his eyes glittering like molten metal. He apologises frantically in a soft, sweet voice, eyes very wide with terror and awe.

Kozmotis blinks and regains himself. He offers the small star a slightly confused smile. "All is well, trainee," he says in his rich voice, and the trainee blushes, his mouth falling open in a thoroughly undignified gape, rocking back on his heels as he stammers and completely loses his train of thought. Kozmotis, looking both bewildered and alarmed, reaches hesitantly forward as if he half-intends to pat the trainee's head, but then abruptly remembers his manners and withdraws himself immediately. The Tsarina sees the awkwardness deepen.

Chandra's eyes raise to the stars for strength. "Excuse me, my Tsarina. I had better rescue my brother."

"That's your brother?" She struggles to remember his name. "He is very...bright." The trainee appears to have no control over his glow, which dims and brightens erratically.

For the first time, Chandra's expression becomes genuine, a soft smile curving his lips and gentleness melting the coldness in his eyes. "Sandy is beautiful," he agrees, "but he turns his back far too easily." He frowns, visage darkening with suspicion. He excuses himself politely.

Ominous message said, Chandra hurries quickly to his brother's side, inserting himself into the conversation and placing a possessive hand on the small of his brother's back, discreetly steering him away. As they leave, Chandra's brother- Sandy- glances over his shoulder and gives Kozmotis a radiant smile. The bereaved man nonetheless jerks his hand in a confused approximation of a wave. Sandy nearly trips, not paying attention to where he is going, and Chandra hisses something that makes the young, trusting trainee roll his eyes.

The Tsarina rocks him in her arms as she finally turns to leave, the sadness of the day abated by the peculiarity of the Mansnoozie brothers. "If there is one to blame indeed, Mim," she murmurs, "he will see justice at my hand, none other's."


	22. Seven

_"The war is over!"_

The cry rings, exultant, from every window. Commoners and nobles mix alike, every face grinning, brightness in their eyes as night falls over the Celestial City and as one, the lights are turned up to full brightness, stripping away every ounce of shadow in rich warm golden light. Every race throngs in the streets, rosy and flushed stars with giggling women on their arms and handsome soldiers out of uniform, Pooka warriors with bristling short fur deep in their cups and laughing in their rumbling voices, noses twitching and eyes gleaming. Bodies move dimly out of sight behind silk hangings or right out on the street, flirtatious star pilots called down from the sky for the night of celebrations, thieves making a rich profit in the purses of unconscious partygoers.

Even the Towers of the Moon, grave and silent, throw wide their great, silver enamelled doors, music and finely-dressed guests swaying into the perfumed night, dusk twinkling with the lights of shooting stars criss-crossing overhead. The Tsarina and the Tsar make a guest appearance, the princeling in his mother's arms, dressed in rich gold laced with black, her husband resplendent in the milky hues of their house. She refuses to wear white. They are perfect together, beautiful, although the Lady Selena looks tired, eagle-eyed courtiers murmur, and there is a certain stiffness in the way Tsar Lunar holds himself apart from her, a courteous guiding arm for her to lay a weary milk-white hand, almost translucent, thin green veins stark against papery skin.

If Lady Pitchiner was here, Selena thinks, she would be circling the ballroom like a hawk, all faux-cold smiles and glittering eyes, the  _"viper",_ collecting fact from rumour, perhaps even she would come to Selena then, later in the night, a goblet of dark red wine in one elegant hand, dark skin glittering with gold and the dusted kisses of star pilots- they are handing them out liberally, even her husband has not escaped the exuberance of the dreamweavers, and many sleep rousing dreams tonight- and whisper the poisonous rumours in her ear like a snake tasting the air,  _"My dear Selena,"_ she would say, " _they speak such scandalous things of your dear husband, that he leaves your bed so cold at night for the company of cheap whores?"_ Perhaps even she would lean close, and Selena has to take a sip of her wine to steady her racing heart, comment on the evident flush of her pale cheeks,  _"perhaps your mantle is too heavy over your wrist, my lady?"_ All said with her slow, languid smile, invitation glittering within the dark depths of her ink eyes.

 _Archaline would do no such thing,_ she reminds herself firmly, though it has become difficult now, to separate Selena's wishful thinking from fact. She replays the short kiss in her mind every night, tossing and turning as she tries to fight insomnia, giving up eventually and downing the entire bottle of the dreaming draught her doctor replaces with a deeper frown every day,  _"My Lady Selena- too much of the draught is proven to have bad effects on the mental state- addictive- perhaps-"_ She dismisses him. She knows already that she is insane.

 _"The war is over!"_ A sweet voice cries, and she turns her head with a cold, polite smile to watch a beautiful young star pilot, familiar, race past, pursued by a giggling maid of the same ilk, verdant green to his vibrant gold, both with the stripes of full pilots on their shoulders.  _"Raysha!"_ he shouts, wriggling and flushing furiously when she pounces on him and proceeds to kiss him deeply. The soldiers they have run through shout bawdy jokes of encouragement that makes Raysha wink and Sanderson blush.

Her smile turns a little more genuine. Following the Mansnoozie brothers' careers has become an idle hobby of hers, and she is glad to see Sanderson active once more. The death of his elder brother has hit him hard- even now, she notes, his glow is very much diminished and the happy shine in his eyes hides a deep, dragging depression he has gotten so good at hiding. She knows what to look for, though. She sees it every day in the mirror.

She hears a soft chuckle over to her right, and her attention changes, her mood abruptly souring. Kozmotis leans against the balustrade, looking down at the star pilots' antics, a small, weary smile dragging the lines on his worn face into something resembling an emotion other than sadness. His eyes remain unaffected, dark and dull, sleepless and ringed with exhaustion just like her own. He wears his tight parade uniform as if it is the only thing holding him up; unlike all the other soldiers, he has not gone without uniform tonight. Selena remembers Archaline sighing over how good Kozmotis had once looked in parade uniform, breeches and shining buckles, tall boots and messy swept-back hair, and wonders what she would say if she were here to see the wreck of her husband now. A few short months have changed him into a gaunt revenant of the man he used to be, hollow and lurching, an iron-hard duty the only thing keeping him moving.

She smiles to herself and rocks Mim, who looks over the gathering with interest. "I wonder if my dear husband has told him yet," she comments to her baby idly as they watch the dancers swirl in a rainbow of lace and taffeta. "I should like to see the devastation in his eyes when he knows he has one final duty. A duty that," she says cheerfully, "will probably kill him."

She hushes herself. Now is not the time to speak so brazenly of her long-awaited, long-planned systematic destruction, slowly crushing Pitchiner's spirit until he is barely a shadow of who he once was, before taking even that from him. "I think you would be proud of me, Archaline," she whispers, turning her face into the breeze. She pretends she can hear Archaline's warm, sultry laugh. "I did all my homework."

Selena rubs one of her fingers, roughened from months of gardening work under her strict Pookan doctor, who has eagerly helped her along on her quest to discover more of traditional Pookan growing methods and plants of all kinds as a therapeutic way of 'relaxation'. She has borne far worse in her slow, simmering need for vengeance.

"Not long now," she promises him softly, and he gurgles and shies away slightly. For a moment, her eyes flash bright white, as bright and white as the moon. Then it passes, and she smiles and rocks him against her hip.

The smile falls from her face when she locates her husband, sandwiched between two beautiful courtiers, both giggling and swooning against his arms, their lashes fluttering.

"Disgusting," she snaps. "All men are the same, aren't they, Mim?" She glares at Kozmotis once, and turns to leave, her heavy skirts swishing around her ankles. "You won't turn out anything like either of them, my baby," she tells him tenderly, stroking his fuzzy hair, "I'll make sure of it."


	23. Eight

A lone ship cuts through the absolute blackness of remote space. Its lights are off and its comm is silent. Its gleaming hull has been brushed with rough grey paint that dulls the reflective surface until the ship, proud arched prow and all, looks like an ugly rock hurtling towards the end of all travelled space.

Inside, Tsarina Lunanoff sits alone in the pilot's harness, still strapped in for hyperdrive. Her long blond hair, darker now, streaked gold and brown, is bound up tightly in an elegant coif atop her head, and she has foregone her usual beautiful, dark gowns for a plain naval jumpsuit. The jumpsuit hugs her too-thin figure and the belt has to be looped twice around her waist. Her eyes are hollow with exhaustion but bright with eagerness, and though her hands shake unsteadily at the controls, she wields the ship with an easy complacence that suggests much practice.

Selena glances to one side to the sleepy, half-opened eyes of her baby, Mim, securely netted into the shock-reducing webbing, cradled comfortably out of the way of the cockpit. Nearby him, a powered down medibot has folded itself into its sleek case, the glowing health symbol on the front showing its readiness to be used.

Swallowing, the Tsarina allows herself a moment of revelry. "Nearly there, Mim," she whispers, sweeping the little ship in a wide arc of the lee of the stony grey prison planet, dark and deserted, below them.

It's the only planet in this deserted sector of space. No friendly star lights up the dark sky with his dreaming path, and no military patrol dares go this far out. Selena has already slipped past the many different quarantine measures that secures the planet. Only a single solitary docking light shines out of the tiny port, empty but for a thoroughly inadequate, snub-nosed escape shuttle. He must have seen her coming, Selena thinks. She smiles coldly.

She brings the ship around carefully, reducing speed in a controlled, slow manner. The docking is not quite perfect, but Selena is no flashy pilot, she gets the job done. She hears the hiss of air de-pressurising in the airlock before a symbol flashes on her display, telling her that the oxygen is safe to breathe and this is a registered class A quarantine planet.

She unstraps herself with quick, shaking fingers. She can't believe this is so easy. As she rises, she murmurs a soft voice command, and a guard droid rises, all controlled, hissing movement, the dark armour of its shell glittering wickedly in the lightstrips. She activates the medibot, which scuttles along at her heels as she presses a button, lowering the ramp.

Kozmotis is waiting for her, dressed in silver armour from head to toe that gleams faintly in the bright lights. His eyes beneath the helmet are dull with exhaustion and his skin is sallow. He looks wrecked, and there is a noticeable delay in his usually graceful movements. He's lost weight.

Selena has Mim in her arms. She never goes anywhere without him, it is her duty to protect him. She can't bear the thought of him leaving her like Archaline has.

"Stars shine upon you, Tsarina Lunanoff, I am at your service _,"_ Kozmotis says respectfully, twisting his hand over his sternum in the accompanying gesture. With a hint of amusement, she notes his accent- rough, a miner's child still- evidently worsened by his exhaustion.

Selena responds in kind. She adds a few more empty courtesies, and he obliges her, making the formal request for her to explain her presence on a Class A quarantine prison planet.

Selena only smiles and breezes right past him.

He follows her, his demands growing in urgency and confusion as she ignores him until they leave the port and come to the tamped down area of barren earth before the great doors. He is clearly struggling to keep up with her swift strides; his long campaigns aboard cramped spaceships and penned in area on the prison planet have left him weak. She has not seen the doors in person before and takes a moment to admire their grandeur while she steels her courage.

Then she turns to the guard droid and carefully places Mim in it's secure grip, making certain he is safely lodged before taking the medibot's case and sliding her own modification into it. Straightening, she orders with absolutely no inflection, "Medibot, Kozmotis Pitchiner is sick and resisting treatment. Give him his medicine."

"What?" Kozmotis shouts, and she turns to watch the sudden confusion in his eyes. Her little smile grows wider. He still hasn't realised what's going to happen. The medibot's attachments snap out, and spools of thin, gossamer, deceptively strong moonsilk cling to Kozmotis' arms and legs, sending him crashing to the floor.

"Release me!" he snarls, and there's definitely the General there, in the cold fire of his distinguished grey eyes, and Selena thinks that Archaline would have liked to see this. Caught by surprise, Kozmotis fights, but the medibot is well programmed with taking down rebellious patients and sinks a syringe into his arm.

The effect is almost instantaneous. The fight drains out of Kozmotis' body, and he goes fully limp, only his furious eyes belying his awareness. She bids the medibot retreat and stalks over to Kozmotis, taking her time in looking him over and making her disgust clear. His face is confused, betrayed, his lips mumble and something garbled slips out, but she knows all too well what he's trying to say. She's spent hours imagining it.

"I must say, I've waited a long time for this." She straddles him deftly, settling comfortably over his hips. His eyes widen and she sees a tremor run through his body. She laughs and rocks against him, just to see a new fear enter his eyes. She has a fair idea of what's going through his mind right now.

"Don't worry, General," she purrs, leaning close and placing her lips against his ear, "I'm really, really not interested."

She begins unbuckling his breastplate. "I imagine that must come as a shock to you- someone in the Constellations that isn't fooled by your noble show and a pretty uniform." She grins, wild. "Your wife, on the other hand..." She sighs. "Archaline was so beautiful."

Kozmotis' eyes narrow and he makes a strangled sound of disgust, whether at Selena's indicated preference for women or specifically her mention of Archaline in that way, Selena knows not. Selena chuckles. "I loved her, you know. I still do," she tells him reflectively, "If it weren't for you, she'd still be alive. If you hadn't been so fixated on waging your war..."

His glare is vicious enough to boil ice, but there is pain there, pain that suggests he agrees with her. He knows he deserves this.

She removes the piece of armour, setting it aside carefully, and her nimble fingers set to work on the buttons of his shirt. He's wearing a high military belt across his stomach, and she undoes that too, hooking it over his narrow hips to expose the entirety of his pale torso.

Selena has not seen many men half-naked, and the fact that this is Archaline's chosen husband sparks her curiosity, but try as she might, she can't see anything particularly special about Kozmotis Pitchiner. He is nothing more than another war-mongering General.

"I decided death was too good for you," Selena hisses, splaying her palms flat over his heaving chest. His eyes are wide with fear, but the paralytic holds him motionless, unresisting as she draws out her knife, traces it teasingly over his ribs. She nicks him, hard enough to draw blood. "I wouldn't want to send you after  _her."_

She grins at him, excited now. "You have no  _idea_ how long I spent pandering to that stupid Pookan doctor to get him to teach me about their preservation symbols." She heaves a melodramatic, commiserating sigh. "But I know them now. And some pretty poisons, too, like that one," she gestures to the medibot, meaning the paralytic. "Very effective. Suitable for a revenge for the  _viper,_ isn't it?"

Stroking his face mockingly, she commits the image of him to memory, and makes the first incision with the blade, drawing it carefully across his pectoral muscle, taking care to dig deeply enough to  _hurt,_ and scar. " _Llallorra,"_ she murmurs, as she carves out the first symbol, one of three. Her eyes blaze lunar bright as she infuses the symbol with her own magic. "Protection. This will keep your pitiable flesh from destruction."

He is unable to tense, but his forehead creases slightly in agony and a choked noise comes out of him before he can stop himself. Fingers slick with his red, hot blood, Selena smirks, and wipes her blade clean on his hair, smearing him with his own blood.

"I thought, seeing as you loved rounding up and imprisoning all these shadows so much, why not do it forever?"

She digs the knife back in, hits a tensing muscle and he shouts, hoarsely, a rough noise caught in his throat. Blood sprays from the wound, dirtying her dress, but she doesn't care. Mim begins to wail, knowing Kozmotis' distress, but Selena only laughs, brightly, madly. "This is  _Life,"_ she croons, "to keep you alive _."_

Kozmotis is shaking, convulsive shudders wracking their way through the grip of the paralytic poison, and he snarls in pain as she slowly, relishing his agony, completes the second symbol over his right pectoral. Magic sings through her blood, the ancient relic of the Lunars, the line of both her husband and her own, related as they are, fey moonmagic so strong and so bright it  _burns_ the sanity from her, leaves her scrabbling in the dirt, struggling to control her own power.

She sets the blade to his navel, for the final and most important symbol.  _"Trap,"_ she hisses, digging the blade vindictively deep and tearing a howl from the stoic General. Thick, wet copper splashes her face, and she realises the paralytic is beginning to wear off, because Kozmotis is involuntarily tensing his abdomen, sending gouts of blood from the wound of the enchanted knife. She presses her hand punishingly against the sigils, and incants, her skin glowing with power, something heavy gathering in the air like an approaching thunderstorm,  _"This life will be protected and trapped within this frame, this soul will be sustained and preserved, the spirit of this creature Kozmotis Pitchiner shall know no death, no surcease nor reprieve, as I declare by the power of my birthright, so mote it be."_

There is a whiplash of searingly hot magic, and Selena screams, power thrilling through every cell in her body,  _twisting, corrupting,_ to her purpose, the sickness festering inside of her pouring out like a lanced boil, shrieking madness and depthless depression turning it into a tidal wave of throbbing power, the buildup of magic that has slowly driven it's cage insane bursting out in a single, explosive spell that burns her out completely, robbing every last vestige of magic from her system.

The sigils light up like witchfire, and Kozmotis is making some awful, horrendous sound beyond a scream, thrashing like a fish on a hook, blistering whips of white fire lashing his body, shining from the lacerations in his flesh and causing cracks and splits.

Selena, gasping, stumbles back, seizing at Mim, but he is firm in the guard droid's grasp. She's wide-eyed and gasping, and her hands are burned and scarred, Mim is shrieking but the tinnitus in her ears is too loud for her to recognise his cries. She stares, blank, mind wiped clean, until a dark voice, ten-thousand dark voices, whisper and chatter and call, bringing her back.

_Finis_ _**h it.** _

_FIN_ _**ISH** _ _HIM LE_ _**T** _ _US O_ _**UT** _ _LET_ _**U** _ _S OUT L_ _**E** _ _T US OUT_ _**LE** _ _T US OUT_ _**LE** _ _T US OUT L_ _**E** _ _T US O_ _**UT** _ _LET_ _**US** _ _OU_ _**T LET US O** _ _UT LET U_ _**S OUT** _ _LET US_ _**OU** _ _T LE_ _**T US OUT LET** _ _US OUT LE_ _**T** _ _US OUT_

"Stop it!" she cries, and Mim wails, because he can feel the darkness leeching reason from her, rushing in to fill that broken, warped core of light that had once been there, the lunar-madness that been woven into her body closer than her genetic makeup.

The hazy, distorted figure of his mother lurches to the great doors, rising triumphantly over all, and claws at them with ragged hands, blood spraying from twitching muscles and painting the indestructible ivory, the last crackles of her magic exploding from her fingertips, rupturing the sigils that hold the great doors locked and impenetrable. A great cry of raucous laughter goes up from the prison, and so much louder now, so loud even Mim can hear the Fearlings shouting, they urge her to open the doors, become their puppet forever.

But Tsarina Lunanoff is broken, and collapses limply on the floor, magical exhaustion burning her core out completely, irredeemably. Her hair, leeched of all lunar magic, turns ravens-wing black, and her skin loses the milky-glow of noble power, instead becoming wan and yellow. The medibot, activated by her collapse, whirs as it uncurls it's attachments, sinking draughts of energy into her frame, saving her life. Programmed to ignore the howling soldier writhing in the dirt, blood rippling from dark, ugly wounds carved into his chest and torso, the medibot innocently tows the unconscious body of his mother back to the ship, where it will set a course for the nearest civilised outpost.

The guardbot moves after its assigned charge, struggling Mim held tightly in the cold metallic grip. It stands, no one to tell it to power-down or counteract its order to hold Mim safely, by the port-window as the ship takes off, on autopilot to the nearest star-system.

Mim quietens, an implacable sense of grief holding the baby's mind. Sensitive to emotion, the baby sniffles, but there is nothing to feel here, with the unconscious body of his mother and the non-living robots.

Instead, he watches the pretty patterns of darkness imitating a little girl's scream, a bloody and broken toy soldier clawing his way forward to collapse before the great doors, throwing them open and shouting a dead girl's name, and the shadows rushing forward to engulf him in a stain of darkness, picking him up, twisting their way into his body through his wounds, through his eyes and nose and mouth, a choking, cloying tidal wave of fear and shadow.

The baby giggles as the toy soldier jerks about like a puppet on a string.


	24. Nine

Mim is not old enough to understand that his mother is sick, but even as a baby his empathic skills are immensely powerful, a manifestation of Lunar power running true in his blood. The ebb and change of emotions are like a perceptible tide in the air around people, dim, flickering auras. He feels the low, dull throb of her unchanging emotions as she is unconscious, feels the taut worry in the servants' and his father's chests when they think of her. He does not see much of her anymore.

It does not matter much to the baby. He has a new face to look at. A boy winter-bright with eyes like chips of glowing ice and a brilliant smile. His name is Nightlight, and he has white hair that glows and he makes funny faces. His heart is always happy and it makes Mim happy too. While the adults bustle around his mother's prone body Nightlight bounces him in his thin, armoured arms and laughs silently, tirelessly amusing him and keeping him preoccupied.

Nightlight is his friend and Mim does not pick up much on the increase of worry from everyone, the murmured tidings of  _"Nightmare King" "He says his name is Pitch Black" "How did Kozmotis let this happen? He betrayed us. He betrayed us all" "Destroyed another star system" "The Pookas...there's no one left" "He's coming for you, my Tsar."_ Nightlight is much more interesting.

Mim does not notice when they move from the Towers of the Moon to a spaceship called the Moon Clipper, and depart into the blackness of space. He does not notice his father's hair turning darker every day as he exerts his powers to bolster his mother's destabilising core, and he does not notice the screams of extinguished stars in the wake of a gloating, corrupted shadow, who sweeps after them all on an inky ship writhing with Fearlings and Dream Pirates, closer and closer each night. They cannot run for long.

Mim does not notice, and he dreams sweetly, and he does not fear, and Pitch Black cannot find him.

His father and his remaining generals speak worriedly together. They do not know why the Nightmare King is obsessed with destroying the future of the Lunars from the Constellations. They don't know why he devours the shining heart of every star he finds, leaving their flickering, dim bodies colourless and empty.

He remembers once being in his father's arms as the Tsar had looked from the window of the Tower of the Moon down into the plaza, the soldiers having dragged the mindless body of a star, once a pretty creature, heavy-eyed with thick long hair, though washed of all colour and now stained grey, to lay limply, core stripped from the body, emotionless on the cobblestones.

"This is what will happen to you!" the soldier had barked. "If you see the Nightmare Galleon,  _flee._ Pilot Rayysha of the Brotherhood was too foolish to fly when she had the chance and this is what she has become."

Partway through his speech, a golden star pilot had run into the plaza screaming  _"Rayysha! Rayysha!"_ His starspeech was so loud Mim could hear echoes in his own mind. His glow was so dim it was barely more than a brass shine to his skin as he fell to his knees beside the empty body. " _Rayysha!"_ The pilot bowed his head of gold hair and wept, his glow flickering like a faulty lightstrip. He was so close to being extinguished himself. The soldiers watched, unmoving, in horrified sympathy.

"He won't last the night." His father had turned away then, and rocked Mim to sleep with a soft lullaby.

Mim's young mind often remembers the desolation he had felt then from the young star pilot, the swamping, numbing horror of endless grief and darkness raging inside a heart that is supposed to be sweet and pure. Nightlight keeps his mind from it when he sleeps, but when he is awake the scar of the sheer hopelessness carved into his mind makes him cry and fuss.

Mim grows in the crib in the spaceship, constantly on the run from the Nightmare King. He says his first word- "toot." His father laughs and spins him, and his mother, hollow-eyed and shaking from where she lies in the pile of pillows, manages to hold him to a little while, stroking the tuft of hair on his head and whispering to him. His father gently removes him from her when her mutterings become incomprehensible even to him.

" _Not till I forgive,"_ she mutters to him,  _"Not till I forgive. I'd let them all die before I forgive. My sweet child. My sweet baby. Don't ever forgive. Carry my hatred for me. I'm slipping, I'm fading. Don't ever forgive."_

They are chased in a dreadful game of deadly cat and mouse to the very far reaches of uninhabited space. The Nightmare Galleon remains only a system or two behind the entire time, trailing a path of utter destruction. The Moon Clipper's arrival brings despair, now, and fear, as people know the Nightmare King is not far behind. And once Pitch Black begins the hunt, there is  _no_ escape.

Finally, they slip into a deserted galaxy humorously nicknamed the  _Milky Way_ by his mother as she, weakly, stands by the viewport. Illness has wrecked her, clings like a shroud to her flesh. She is thinner, gaunt, and her black hair looks too severe around the hollows of her face. Her eyes, faded and dull, no longer shine.

"I'm dying," she says one night. "He's going to find us, Lunar. And then he's going to rip us all apart." She says it with a peaceable sort of finality, not even bothering to turn her head. Mim feels a cold sort of happiness from her at the prospect.

"Perhaps he won't," says his father. "I believe...Kozmotis has to be in there somewhere." From him, desperation, a great sadness,  _hope._ It's a small hope, weak and already dying. But it's there. His father still  _hopes_ that Kozmotis Pitchiner can be saved from the ashes he has become.

"Oh, I don't doubt that he  _is,"_ laughs his mother. She starts coughing and there is blood on her lips as his father helps her back to bed.

They hide in the gravity of a small, nameless blue and green planet, and their ship transforms into its façade of a moon, lifeless, grey, boring. Thus disguised, they dim all their lights and wait, hoping the Nightmare King will sail right past them. There are only four sentient creatures on board, really, to feel fear, and Nightlight keeps Mim and himself free of it well enough.

It's not long before the Galleon is picked up on their scanners, and it is heading right for them, at full speed ahead. In the viewport, it is terrible and yet incredible to behold, a flanged ship of cruel edges and barbs, writhing with messes of slick, white-eyed shadows, captained by a wraith with a power over them so absolute and cold, a sweep of his arm blots out entire stars. His jagged teeth are bared in a grin, dripping with the shining blood of stars, and the Galleon leaves a screeching medley of Dream Pirates in it's wake, to hunt and hound and kill everything that the Galleon missed the first time around. The moment it appears, all their courage seems to desert them, and they begin to fear.

But as it draws closer, the scanners pick up on one other ship, smaller, thus escaping detection for longer.

It's a star, brilliant gold and shooting through space like a beacon of hope. It burns so brightly, so strongly with the power of good dreams, hopes and wishes and gentle things, that the Nightmare Galleon following close behind looks like a spidery stain of shadow. Everything pales in comparison to it. It's pilot is unable to be seen because of it's brightness, but it isn't needed. There's only one star pilot left now. The greatest and brightest, strongest and purest of them all.

"Toot-toot?" Mim asks. Nightlight giggles.

" _Captain Sanderson Mansnoozie,"_ whispers his mother in awe, something young and happy lighting up in her eyes, transforming her for a second back into the slender, beautiful innocent girl she had been once, and his father blinks in surprise, but his face crinkles into a glad smile.

"I thought for sure the Dreambringer had been extinguished by now..."

His eyes go to the dark, brutal ship hounding the star, a harsh silhouette standing out as a shape of absolute blackness on the deck. The Nightmare King is crowned with a head of shifting shadows, eyes that burn like madness, and he stands taller than ten men. It is too far away to look at his face, but the Tsar cannot help but wonder if it still reflects the gallant man he was once. In his clawed hand, the Nightmare King begins to swing a great harpoon, barbed and wicked.

The star is not fast enough, and the Galleon is quickly gaining. Pitch Black throws back his head and laughs as the harpoon lodges deep into the star's cockpit, explosions of shadow wreathing around the cockpit and tearing the shield away to expose the pilot. For a half a moment, Mim swears he feels a burst of agony and terror from  _inside_ the star itself, but that's impossible, he knows.

Sanderson Mansnoozie is small, impossibly small and dimly shining around all of this shadow, his unkempt mane of unruly golden hair a hindrance as Fearlings tear at it, his eyes hollow and sleep-deprived. A life on the run has left him gaunt and hardened, depression has wrought it's own brutal toll. There is nothing bright or shining in that star pilot's heart any longer, yet somehow his glow, weak, still bravely,  _defiantly_  shines, where every other one has long since been extinguished. The Galleon comes so close that Pitch, leaning down over the head, could reach out and tug his hand through the star pilot's tangled golden hair if he wished.

"No!" His mother cries, gripping the console. "No!"

"Selena, there's nothing we can do," His father whispers, but he looks just as horrorstruck, the previous hope and burst of joy destroyed. He knows that his mother has a special fondness for this star in particular, a memory of two brothers at a funeral, one dead in the heart of a destabilised supernova, the other wishing he could follow his brother down into oblivion.

"Yes, yes there is!" His mother lunges for the lights, but his father, guessing her intention, grabs her arms and holds her back.

"Selena, don't be a fool! We can't give away our hiding place!" he shouts over her struggling.

" _I can't just watch him die!"_ She isn't thinking clearly, Mim can tell, her mind is a storm of horror and confusion and hurt.

Pitch Black reaches down and rips the struggling pilot from the cockpit, and Mim can feel his terror from the Clipper, and begins to cry, gutwrenching and awful, and underneath, repeated from  _inside_ the star yet again, horror and terror and  _oh stars Captain Sandy no!_  There is a cold, dark, warped satisfaction he can read as well, a slick and starved sort of possessive, lustful hunger that makes him feel sick to feel, a hunger that he knows can only come from one as evil as the Nightmare King himself. Mim can feel the heart of the Nightmare King  _hunger_ for a taste of the star's light, a light he craves to banish the shadows within.

Sanderson Mansnoozie is tiny compared to the Nightmare King's size and strength. Pitch traps him in his arms like a toy, his claws reaching to tear out the star's heart to feed his hunger. Mim feels it the exact moment that Sanderson accepts his fate, feels a swell of incredible relief from the little star pilot- at last, he could stop fighting. At last, his death has come, and he could let go in the arms of the darkness. Pitch's desperate hunger is tinged with a relief too, a cruel hope that feels  _wrong_ coming from such a black shadow-  _maybethistimetheshadowswillbedestroyed_ _ **o**_ _h st_ _ **ars o**_ _h sta_ _ **rs**_ _im_ _ **sohungry**_ _im_ _ **sohungry**_ _makeitend l_ _ **ight light**_ _it hurts_ _ **destroy burns destroy it**_ _help me_ _ **hungry hungry**_ _getthemout_ _ **hungry hungry sO HUNGRY WE ARE SO HUNGRY WE WILL DESTROY-**_

Mim screams like he is being torn apart, that shadowy sickness forcing his young body to throw up violently. His father, distracted, looses his grip on his mother and rushes to him, but Nightlight is already dealing with him, rocking him and hushing him until the light within him, simple joy, soothes the temporary taste of the shadows away. It is torturous, and Mim has only had the barest  _glimpse_ at the turmoil of the Nightmare King's mind.

His mother seizes her chance. The full strength of the Moon Clipper's searchlights strike Pitch directly across the face, and he  _shrieks_ in agony and rage, dropping his prey. The pilot scrambles back into his star and together the star and pilot plummet towards the planet, losing altitude quickly and spinning out of control.

Mim watches them.

 _I wish you well,_ he thinks, and as if the star hears him, it jerks. At the last moment, the star pulls up and streaks across the ocean, landing in an explosion that sends shockwaves through the entire ocean, and throws up such a howling nimbus of detritus that Mim cannot see anything.

Pitch Black, burned and furious, slowly raises his empty gaze to the helpless Moon Clipper, and a mad cacophony of laughter arises from the Galleon.

The Nightmare King  _grins._


	25. Ten

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THE DAY YOU'VE ALL BEEN WAITING FOR.  
> (Yes, I borrowed references from the books.)

The Nightmare Galleon rises like a crow out of the darkness, its matte hull sucking in all light and writhing with laughing Fearlings. Dream Pirates swing from the shifting rigging, their shapes blurry and indistinct, like the blackest cigarette smoke over troubled water. Their white eyes shine with malevolence, and in the shadow of the Nightmare Galleon fear sucks down all the bravery in their hearts like quicksand.

The little blue and green planet, untouched but for the smoking crater of Captain Mansnoozie's star, is blocked out by the stark dark shape, Pitch rising over all on the bow, shadows lapping caressingly over its flapping coat and anchoring it to the dense nest of Fearlings, playing over the long staff it carries in one hand. Its smile is a knifeblade, its eyes burn white and gold, some mix of silver as shadows play over its stained flesh, grey like soot.

On the deck, the Tsar and Tsarina stand over the cradle of their child, who giggles at the hawk-nosed man, crowned by slick shifting shadows. He feels that starved, voracious hunger, a jagged sense of incompleteness like puzzle pieces shoved together emanating from Pitch's tall figure.

“Toot toot?” he says in a small voice, intimidated by Pitch's looming figure but unafraid with Nightlight's bright cold light keeping the roiling darkness at bay.

“ _Where is that oh so innocent child who has never had a nightmare?”_ Pitch asks, and its voice is strange, hissing from the maw of every Fearling on the ship, disjointed and picked up by different shadows, accompanied by shadows and the crack of a voice wrung raw from screaming. The screamed-out voice doesn't sound like it belongs with the shadows, but the shadows are woven into it like a brutal tapestry of fear and mindlessness.

The Tsarina begins to laugh, a hoarse, choking thing. “Hello monster,” she whispers dryly. Pitch looks at her, and Mim feels the fractured sensation of _**strangehuman** _ _betrayal_ _**killhungry** _ _hurt_ _**fear?fear?hungrywhereisfear?** _ _helpmehelpme_ _**wewillmakehumanfear** _ _getmeout_ _**WE ARE HUNGRY WE WILL HAVE YOUR FEAR-** _

He begins to cry, wailing. He hates Pitch's poison in his mind. He hates the slick feel of its squirming shadows, the disjointed agony of ten thousand and one opposing minds crammed together into one broken body and forced to cohabit, forced to work together, the seeping evil of its darkness.

His father steps forward bravely. “Kozmotis!” His voice sounds small. Pitch stares down at him like he is a particularly irritating ant. “I know you're in there! Kozmotis!”

Almost politely, Pitch tips its head and says, in its many hissing voices, _“We do not know a Kozmotis.”_ It blinks slowly, one eyelid blinking independently of the other.

The Tsar falls back a step, eyes widening and face paling. Mim feels fear uncurl within him, and Pitch's eyes brighten, its nostrils flare. Here, this is something that it understands, from these bizarre people who don't seem to fear it properly like everyone else does. It points down at the Clipper with its staff, and shadows race down the staff's length, bridging the gap between the Clipper and the Galleon with ease.

The Clipper's defences spring into action, the boom of the cannons striking the Galleon's hull concussive impacts that rock the entire ship, though Pitch hardly wavers from its position. Howling Pirates leap onto the Clipper, their gaseous forms swarming the stout, hardy Moonbots, shrilly screaming Moonmice running about underfoot. Smoke blooms in the air like the breath of a great dragon, and Mim hears Pitch's laughter and the screams of the crew as they are dragged, screaming, into the darkness. Pitch steps down to fight, its tall body, taller than ten men and swelled with bulging shadows, oddly graceless, jerky and uncoordinated, swinging its staff and claws.

The Tsar grabbed Nightlight's bony shoulder, yanking him down when it seems as if the spectral boy is about to join the fight. “Take Mim to safety,” he shouts over the furor, “Where Pitch cannot find him.” He places his precious son into Nightlight's arms, the glowing boy's happy glow dimmed with the seriousness of the occasion. “Swear to me this,” he says, and the Tsarina shares with him a long look, perhaps in accord for the sake of their son for the first time since the moment they met at the altar. “ _Guard with your life his hopes and dreams, for he is all that we have, all that we are, and all that we will ever be.”_

Nightlight nods, and in the voice of a frightened boy, whispers, “ _I will.”_

The Tsar smiles and claps him on the shoulder, then turns and draws his sword. He pulls on the well of what lunar magic he has left, and his skin lights up with a brilliant glow, channelled through his sword and cutting through Dream Pirates with ease. The Tsarina has never been formally taught any weapons, and Lunar's eyebrows raise when his wife pulls out twin daggers from her sleeves and stands beside him.

It's an odd moment of accord between them, and Mim watches them over Nightlight's shoulder as he is carried away, feeling for the first time something like an understanding springing up between them as they prepare to die together. Lunar smiles grimly at Selena, who grins back at him, fierce and bright and a little mad.

Then they leap forward together, into the howling abyss of Pitch's shadows, and Mim loses sight of his parents. It is the last time he will ever see them alive.

Mim is frightened now. Pitch's glee feels unwholesome and wrong, like a discordant note in an orchestra of terror, and the flickering bravery of his parents and Nightlight feels insignificant to the force of the chattering hunger projecting from the shadows. He begins to cry, tears streaking over his cheeks, and Nightlight catches them on his shining fingers and turns them into diamond daggers.

They both pause, a little surprised, but then Nightlight grins at him, carefree still, and hefts his new dagger. _“Remember me in dreams,”_ he murmurs to the baby, hiding him securely, and darts off.

Mim does not see what happens.

He does not see his parents and their crew brought low before the Nightmare King, or how his mother rises, unafraid still, approaching Pitch Black weaponless.

“Hello, monster,” she repeats, her smile growing, and catches the front of its dark, shadowy coat, pulling it to its knees. Startled, Pitch goes, its white-gold eyes blinking rapidly in shock.

Even on its knees, it still towers over her, and Selena has to reach up in order to cup the sharp edges of its cheekbones, the wild and alien face that looks almost familiar, distorted and wavering like a smoky mirror on a windy day. The shadows of its hair curl around her wrists and Pitch blinks, letting her do what she will. It is confused. She does not fear it. It does not know how to respond when they do not fear it, and in its mind there are ten thousand conflicting, shrieking orders, and it cannot follow them all at once, so it sits there instead.

“You're an ugly creature, aren't you? A hideous, vicious _animal.”_ She pulls its lip aside to look at its sharp teeth, whistles, runs the pads of her thumbs over the hollows under its eyes, sleepless, nightmarish hollows. The shadows under its skin reach out, tentatively try and pollute her, but something iron and lunarbright, an invisible cage around its flesh, stops them.

“Selena-” It's her husband, soft and horrified and wondering what on earth she is doing, baiting the Nightmare King, who does not even appear to understand the insults. The Dream Pirates shift uneasily. Pitch's lashes swipe her fingertips as it blinks again. Speaking is difficult, corralling all of its voices together into saying one thing, so it doesn't do that, either.

“I wonder,” says Selena, with a hint of cruelty, and unbuttons Pitch's long coat, pushing it aside slightly to reveal a V-neck of stained grey skin. She tilts her head, smiles at the hideous deep wounds, unhealed, and balls her hand into a fist. She draws back her hand and punches it hard in the midriff, and Pitch doubles over in agony, an inhuman screech ripping from its throat. Its shadows pounce, instantly, affixing their cold grips tightly around Selena's limbs and _yanking_ until she is torn in two, gurgling laughter all the while, a neat split down her flesh widening like a gaping yawn, blood and organs spilling out over the deck of the Moon Clipper as the halves of her body fall lifeless to the deck, howling shadows immediately clawing at the corpse, mutilating it and savaging it.

Pitch stands, its face contorted into a horror of rage, black, turgid blood dripping slowly out of its uncovered wounds, and hissing, acidic, on the deck, to extend the same treatment to the Tsar. Its claws reach out, dripping with his wife's blood, and the Tsar backs away, face milky-white and gleaming with sweat, with nausea, with horror. Pitch breathes in his fear like it is an aphrodisiac, its eyes shifting to Fearling white with hunger.

Nightlight explodes out of a passageway, an arrow of white light tipped with a lance that plunges deep into Pitch's unprotected heart, lodging there, and the sound that comes out as Nightlight forces his searing light through Pitch's shadow-corrupted flesh is indescribable, beyond a howl, beyond a scream or a wail or even hearing, tearing through every Fearling throat as it topples, backwards, like a ragged doll, and begins to fall, faster, faster, burning up with heat and light and Pitch still _screaming_ in _agony_ as they plummet to the unsuspecting planet Captain Mansnoozie had graced only perhaps twenty three hours before.

Nightlight's bright power flares like a supernova as his form is drawn inexorably into the vacuum of brightness inside Pitch, light rushing to shadow, turning to instant dust the body of Selena, the Tsar, the crew and the hull of the Moon Clipper, until all that is left is a dead Moon, a few moonmice and shambling moonbots, and a tiny, terrified baby, with a single lock of pure white hair.

“Toot toot?” whimpers Mim.

No one answers.

No one will ever again.

 


	26. Eleven

The baby won't stop crying.

A few Moonmice try to placate the screaming infant, face flushed red with rage as he howls, watery tears streaking his scrunched up face.

It's not yet been hours since Pitch Black and Nightlight fell, but already the true desolation of what has happened is becoming clear. There are new stars in the sky, now, to look down silently on their work. No one is here to bless the Tsar and Tsarina's souls, but they've found their way to rejoin the guiding lights of the stars anyway. They look down, weeping, at their abandoned son, who screams in his cradle for them.

The Moonbots scurry around in a frantic mess, trying to take stock of the wreckage, trying to fix a stable roof to ward off the chill, salvaging what they can from the desolation. They are programmed for the practical. The baby will be cold. He needs shelter and blankets and food. Entertainment and comfort is the last thing on their ticking, whirring minds.

The moonmice creep closer to the baby and tickle his chubby legs and sides with their small dancing fingers, trying to rise a laugh from him. It doesn't work. Mim wants his mother, his father.

Mim doesn't understand. Where is Nightlight, to pick him up? Why can't he feel the current of their minds anymore? Where is the bad man who feels so evil and cruel but hides something so desperate and hurting? Where is his mother, sickened core and all? Why won't anyone come for him?

He screams louder, unhappy in the extreme, and taught if he screams, an adult will come. A frustrated Moonbot shoves him in front of the telescope, still pointed to where it had been used last, down at the crash site of Sanderson Mansnoozie's star. The telescope is a magnificent piece of engineering, sharp enough to pick out the subtlest details of a sight, a death a small child should probably not be watching.

Blessedly, Mim goes quiet, entranced by the pretty swirls of colourless greyish sand settling.

Mim giggles when he spots the pilot himself, the sharp telescope able to pick up the tears on Sanderson's cheeks, the blood that still drips from claw marks rent in the soft flesh of his shoulder, forced out by his pumping heart.

Such a strong little star. His glow still flickers, so, so very weak, kept alight by the influx of hopeful wishes the children he zoomed so close over in his wild crash.

The smouldering wreckage of the star has crashed down in the middle of a vast ocean, no land in sight for miles around. The main bulk of the star has transformed into starsand, dull and motionless, the hard, superheated ball of the star's core ploughing a deep trench through the middle of all the light, floating starsand. Mim can see Captain Mansnoozie, the dark blue of his jumpsuit distinctive against the sand, unconscious and thrown clear, the twisted screen of the front of his small cockpit hunched over him protectively.

It is lucky that Sanderson has the screen partially shielding his little body like a curled over leaf, because sand falls from the disturbed sky like rain, making soft _hsshhing_ noises as it begins to cover the tiny spit of land. The sand near Captain Mansnoozie is dyed brass from his blood.

The tight, hard ball of dense material formed in the heart of the star is shaking, vibrating as if someone is pounding it from the inside. Hairline cracks appear in the ball. It quivers a little more, and then _explodes,_ deadly fragments flying everywhere as a beautiful girl lurches out, winds whipping around her body, tearing at the already ragged remnants of a dress she is wearing. The winds stir up the sand, and the slender little girl throws them around like toys, shouting and screaming and staggering about.

He presumes she is looking for the star pilot.

Her efforts are only stirring up the sand. It rouses like an angry beast, swirling into an angry tornado of dull sand. The little pilot in his cockpit are quickly started to be buried. The pilot jerks in his sleep as sand drives in his little hollow, and Mim wonders if he knows he is being suffocated. He won't wake up.

He can't until Mim's wish is fulfilled. _I wish you well._

He is not well.

He is broken and his glow is suffering and he has been denied another chance for the death he so desperately craves and he's outcast from the stars and if he wakes up, his glow will be extinguished under the crushing weight of his own despair. So he sleeps and dreams of being well. He dreams of his big brother tucking his hair behind his ear the way he used to, Chandrassar, the beloved brother for whom Sandy shone, and all the friends and family he has lost to Pitch Black's hunger and the hurting girl in his star, his companion in suffering, healing and baring her face, freed from his star.

They are the last dreams the brave little star pilot Captain Sanderson Mansnoozie will ever dream, as the sand pours in his parted mouth and down his throat and into his lungs, cuts off his airways, and the girl cries out, and there are tears running down her wan cheeks, because her efforts to find him have only lost him, barred him forever from her sight.

Sanderson Mansnoozie is buried under waves and waves of crushing sand, his little heart struggling, oxygen-deprived and slowly, slowly suffocating. The heartbeat falters, stuttering without oxygen. It makes a few desperate leaps.

The girl stops throwing her winds around, and the sand settles. She falls to her knees in the centre of the island of sand she has created, beautiful wisps and whorls of sand. It's a beautiful masterpiece, really, she the jewel of it all in her ragged scraps of a dress and burned, blistered skin.

She realises what she has done.

Mim is glad he isn't close enough to feel the break rip through her heart. Her mouth parts in a gape of agony, and he can't hear her scream but he can see it, the way it makes the earth shudder and the animals weep, the sand move and the wind itself howl with her loss. The powerful, magical girl of storms cries and makes the world cry with her.

Mim watches, an impartial observer, as the girl, barely a woman, slams her fist into the sand. Her beautiful face is streaked with tears, but she raises her head, something cold shuttering there, shutting the pain away, running from it. She whispers something, looks around at the young, raw world, bubbling over with natural magic untouched, and rises to her feet.

Spreading her arms wide, she ordains, _“There will be balance, on this planet as I have seen what imbalance brings too much, broken families, fear, destruction. On every scale, there will be balance, and things to keep this balance, in all things. There will be a light to every darkness and a darkness to every light, by my power and that of this earth, so mote it be.”_

The spell flies from her fingertips like a rush of wind, and for a moment it gusts away without any action. Then slowly, ponderously, the earth responds, coaxed to life under this foreign girl's skill.

The baby in the moon watches curiously as corals and vines reach out from the sea, wrap around her bare feet like a caress, turtles and fish and sharks and great whales singing out of sight gathering close to this bizarre, unmoored shore, and pour their hearts behind her spell, pour the world's lifemagic, the only, the oldest magic, into her small human body.

She staggers as the power rushes into her, the natural magic of the world called to her oath. All at once her tangled hair grows at the rate of knots, reaching her ankles and then pooling around her in seconds, the wind greets her like an old friend, her awareness stretches and grows as the magic warps her cells, her bones and body and blood, scooping out what is mortal and human and replacing it with tree and vine and growing things, new life and burgeoning shoots.

The first spirit is born, and Life opens her bright, bright green eyes to the sight of the shadow she casts twisting like a wild thing, scrambling and pulling itself out of the dirt like a corpse, a skeleton, rough flesh and ragged dead things coming to clothe him, drawing power from the almost-corpse below, and her brother-spirit Death opens his own blank white eyes.

Sanderson's body is suspended, awash with life and death magics that instantly cancel each other out, neither state tipping.

Life and Death look at each other, and together, they say, “So mote it be.”

Everything in the world begins to split into as many parts as it needs. Mim watches it all from his moon, curious, watching the cores gather, swirling, above the little sandy island, all manner of them, cruelty and kindness, colour and dullness, hope and hopelessness, predator and prey, healthiness and illness, opposites that affect all manner of parts mental and physical, and though they are all amorphous swirls of magic, to a sensitive empath child like Mim they are easily discernible, like all magic he has seen.

The cores split and crack, rupturing. Some of them break easily, sliding apart. Some of them, that are a little harder to define, slip and slide away from tearing as long as they can, and when they shatter, they go messily, screaming defiance and leaving shards of each other embedded within. New spirits are born, the most driving first, taking the living shells of the animals gathering around Life and Death and repurposing them, refitting bones and scales into beaks and feathers and human skin and eyes and any shape they choose.

The core of dreams is especially rebellious, and it takes a specifically stern glare and concentration from Life and Death before it begins to slowly crack. This breaking is not a breaking in two at all but a simple _tearing,_ one part somehow lighter, one part somehow darker, yet each infected liberally with each other, for, as every child knows, as even Mim knows, watching from his telescope on the moon, one man's nightmare is another's sweetest dream. Hopes and fears, the driving force of the universe.

Sullenly, dreams takes the closest form it can find, consumes a sweet little star pilot's deathdreams right from his mind, finds him buried far underneath the sand, the core leaking out and staining the sand brilliantly as it does, settles deep inside the body. Sanderson's heart stops for half a second, as nightmares, twisting and struggling, find their own perfect shell, a shattered body that was once called Kozmotis, writhing with angry fearlings who grudgingly accept the core, nightmares and fear close enough they weave happily together, and Pitch Black breathes, and Sandy breathes, and under closed eyelids eclipse eyes flicker.

There is balance, here, while Nightmare King and Dreamweaver slumber. Content, Life lowers her arms, feels the thrum of Sandy's pulse under her heartbeat, and parts ways with Death.


	27. Twelve

Years pass in the slow, dull way years do. Mim grows from a tiny baby to a rambunctious boy, pale as the moon he lives on, but strong and healthy. He spends his time exploring the crevasses of the meteor-torn craters of the Moon, bouncing off the tallest ones into deep pits and back out again, or nestling into the soft furry backs of lunar moths, soaring through the sky amidst the distant stars. He misses his parents the most then, but Mim is quite used to curling up in bed alone and ignoring the ache of loneliness in his heart until it dissipates.

Besides, there is always the planet far, far below he can concentrate on, pretend he is a part of.

He learns to speak through watching Earth in his great telescope, a few minor adjustments and a sprinkle of magic bringing him audio as well as sight. He watches his new friends on Earth avidly, obsessing over their lives and the petty things that occupy them with deep concentration, choosing to focus and exalt them over the dullness of the moon. He sympathises with their sorrows, laughs and dances at their triumphs, blushes when they grow from children he understands, children like him, to awkward adults and then parents themselves. He doesn't like it when his old playmates transform, a change coming along much slower in his own alien body, a slow advancement towards puberty that will take many centuries more than those brief humans will ever see.

Yet, with each revolution of the earth he orbits around the bright star they call the sun, his empathic power waxes stronger. As a baby, he'd been able to feel the Nightmare King's sorrow beneath all his hungry shadows, when he'd stood as a blot of darkness hounding a speck of light, a speck of light with an empty heart. As a boy, he is able to feel the humans, the animals, even the soft sighs of the planet itself through it's chosen representatives, the spirits of the world, as a whisper-soft susurration in times of happiness, sadness, depression. At this point, it is still nothing more than background noise, easily ignored.

But even so, Mim feels it when a gathering darkness falls upon the land, product of no spirit but humans themselves, humans that feel less joy, less dreams and hopes and happiness than they have before, and Mim doesn't know why. He peers down worriedly at his remote friends and silently urges them to go out and play, but they don't. The children are quiet and tired, keeping close to their parents, who scan the night with torches held high aloft.

It's terribly boring. Mim throws himself back in his comfortable chair before his big telescope and thinks as hard as he can, screwing up his face and holding his chin like he's seen the old wise men on Earth do. The moonmice gather around him, squeaking questions.

“Well,” says Mim, “What do they want?”

He thinks about things he likes best. Adventures with the moonmice! Flying on lunar moths! Dinnertime with the peeping star-fish with their great golden fins and glistening eyes! He frowns. But the children on Earth don't _have_ moonmice, or lunar moths, or star-fish. They're too tired and not happy enough to dream up adventures anymore. Afraid, he thinks, of the dark. Mim shivers. He's afraid of the dark, too. It's very scary, and he still remembers things that _hunger_ in the darkness, things with white eyes and aching hearts that beg to be freed.

“It's not like I can go down there and cheer them up myself,” Mim says aloud to the moonmice, who all shake their heads furiously. Mim shudders a little. Leave the protection of the Moon? Even if it is possible, he'd never do it. It would be terrifying, and he already knows that there are _bad_ things on Earth. _Bad_ things, that while still slumbering, pinned down in the darkness by a lunar lance, still infest the sleeping dreams of innocent children with nasty nightmares.

“I need someone to do it for me. But who?”

The more he thinks, the more he decides he likes this idea. Guardians! To protect the happiness of the children, just like Nightlight used to do with him. But Mim has already searched for Nightlight many times, and not found him, so he will have to ask someone else.

He searches with his big telescope, scanning the world deeply. He pauses on Mother Nature, wonders. No, he thinks, Mother Nature is a bitter spirit, angry, hard and ruthless, and she's a little too close to the Grim Reaper for his liking. Mim doesn't think that evil spirits like the Grim Reaper and good spirits like Mother Nature should mix, the evil ones belong in the pits they came from! He doesn't understand why Mother Nature doesn't defeat the Grim Reaper, Mim has seen plenty of examples when he's taken people too young. He thinks Mother Nature is probably so sad all the time because she tries to be friends with evil people. So, Mim needs someone who won't ever want to be near an evil person.

“No,” he says, “I need someone _good_ and bright.”

His telescope falls upon a spot of gold, and Mim grins, delighted. He remembers this little star. He zooms in, and is disappointed.

It's just an island of dull brassy sand, with a few mermaids lounging around. That isn't right. Mim's fairly certain there should be a little man, with bright eyes and a bright heart, perfect for being a protector of the earth's children. Yes, he thinks, he will be always happy, a sleepy little fellow, but ready with a smile and gentle. He won't kick or hurt or ever want to. No, this guardian will be absolutely perfect, _untouched_ by the taint of darkness and evil that has made Mother Nature so upset.

He concentrates hard. He can still feel the star's presence. It has to be the star. Who else would be so bright, so powerful, so deeply asleep and dreaming? In fact, the aura is so deep and encompassing, when Mim searches for it directly, that he winces a little and pulls away from the telescope to rub his eyes, blinking away after-images.

He has his Guardian. Now, to get him to wake up, and show himself. He must be very good at hide and seek, to hide in that barren heap of sand!

Mim tries everything he can think of, but the little star is very determined to stay asleep. He sends moonbeams down to poke the sand. He shouts through them as loud as his little voice can. But no one is listening to the mental whisper of a few moonbeams.

Mim sits back and thinks. What are stars famous for? The answer comes to him in a flash, and he leans forward triumphantly, speaking to the sand itself, _“I wish you would help.”_

The sand stirs. Mim eagerly reaches for it with his moonbeams, but suddenly something seems to latch onto his mind, draining his power away terrifyingly quickly. He struggles against it, helpless.

A lazy pulse of brass resounds through the sand, and the mermaids, screeching, dive into the ocean. A few tendrils of sand uncurl into the ocean from the circular mass, like the tentacles of a great sleeping sea creature. A slow, sleepy feeling of _questioning_ thrums at him, deep and inherently seductive, and Mim feels his eyes droop where he sits.

“W-When the m-moon's not-” he has to stop, gather his breath. The presence is so massive, and it calls so sweetly for him indulge in the warmth of his bed, the giving comfort of dreams, yet listens to little Mim with easy patience. If it knows what patience is. It doesn't seem immediately aggressive, at any rate.

“When the moon's not full and bright, will you keep the children safe at night?” he asks bravely, and the sand twists, and then he feels a presence _digging_ in his mind, drawing out all his dreams and wishes for his plan and evaluating them with a curious eye.

Mim gasps, collapses against the chair, insensate and trembling as the presence strips through barriers he doesn't know he had put up to secret places he can't remember having, extracting his desires and dreams and wishes from him. Once it has read every wish, everything from the shy little shaky voice that whispers _“wouldn't it be nice to have a friend?”_ to the one that murmurs _“carry my hate for me make me proud”,_ it withdraws slightly, an equable agreement emanating from it. It really has nothing better to do, and helping a few children sleep doesn't sound awful.

“You have to- you have to help,” he says weakly, and the sand ripples again. He pushes at it with his power, trying to shape it into a form, the one he sees in his mind's eye, a short, plump man, bright and beautiful and cheerful, soft and warm.

The sand, wakening, begins to move, though it prods at the design a little dubiously. _Not a great room for versatility,_ it complains, and Mim snaps back, a little crossly, “You're just supposed to protect children's dreams, you don't need _versatility._ ”

There's a great resistance to it's movements, as if something is dragging it back. Annoyed, Mim pours more power into helping, and a crackle of sharp energy jerks through the sand, right down into the little body hidden so far beneath, and further, a shadowy cavern where a monster lies pinned, a lance through its heart and bright eclipse gold-silver eyes snapping open. Pitch Black yawns.

The sand moves faster now, coalescing into a rough shape. It is wobbly, shifting and sliding apart, some sort of roundish, eldritch tentacle creature that looks like some unholy mix of octopus and sea monster from hell, and darkness stains it in irregular patches, fragments of shadow that slide around inside like they belong there, even what looks suspiciously like a Fearling or two curling up inside its left eye socket. What he assumes is its left eye socket, though it's somewhere in the forehead region rather than near the right eye.

Mim frowns as the orb-thing turns what counts as its face up to the moon, baring the impression of sharp teeth in an approximation of a smile. It seems pleased with itself.

 _I did it, look,_ it says proudly. The sandy body collapses. _Oh._

“It's a start,” he tells the Sandman kindly.  


	28. Thirteen

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING- This chapter contains violence and manipulation. And possibly feels.

 

Mim watches the Sandman out and about on his new job a lot, unable to quite shake the fear that he's set loose something well-meaning but monstrous on the poor, defenceless children of the Earth. The Sandman seems to be a happy enough soul, but more than slightly amoral, and completely ignorant of any memory but for the few seconds before he'd fallen asleep beneath the sand, stirred up by Mother Nature's winds. Or died. It is a shaky line with the Sandman. Nonetheless, it means there are occasional accidents with extremely curious dream-spirits poking tentacles into things that are really not their business, which Mim has to hurriedly explain away or cover for.

...He doesn't think he'll ever really understand the Sandman's predilection for digging up dead bodies and dragging them into beds, insisting that they are just sleeping.

Not to mention, the slow, lazy spirals of sand is hypnotic to watch. It changes colour, melting seamlessly between hues of copper, brass, slate-silver and even occasionally a bright sharp gold, defiant against the darkness of the night. From above, Mim can often spot abstract pictures in the sand, and it becomes one of his favourite activities.

Life certainly isn't boring, when he has to steer the innocent spirit away _constantly_ from not only bad people but remind him of the time – daylight and the Sandman does not mix well, Mim learns, still recalling the Sandman's infuriated screeching as he'd tried to haul as much of his dreamsand as he could underneath a fallen tree and _refused,_ adamantly, to stop complaining about the too-bright light or move for the entire day until night fell again – and also stop him from simply putting the whole world to sleep.

 _But why?_ Sandman demands petulantly, _it follows the rules! The children can't be in danger if they're tucked up asleep, and not outside being_ awake.

He holds a great disdain for being awake, Mim observes wearily.

It stands to reason that when Mim allows himself a few hours off, just a few to not have to stare down the telescope and bully the avatar of Dreams itself into not taking home eighteen different abandoned cats – _But they're so cute! And fluffy! And the mermaids can eat them and crunch their little bones up! -_ that the Sandman gets himself into trouble with a very dark and evil spirit indeed.

Mim only leaves for a little bit, making certain the Sandman is contentedly dozing in a treetop, the sandy mess of writhing octopus-limbs that makes up his body glooping over the branches and sending a few unfortunate birds into dreaming comas.

Unfortunately, barely a moment after Mim turns his eyes from the telescope, a darkness slithers out from underneath the branches, and says, very crossly,

“Do you mind moving over? I am stuck between the tree and your sand.”

The Sandman jerks awake, convinced he has heard a voice. Excitedly, he peers down underneath the tree to see this new spirit- only to be faced with a darkness so utter and complete not even his light can penetrate it. Displeased, he strengthens the brightness of his glow, calling all of his purest, sweetest dreams to mind, the few, rare bright gold flecks of sand in a roiling tide of silver and brass.

The darkness shrieks. “Too bright! Too bright!”It howls, and the Sandman has the impression of it trying to cram itself underneath the tree roots, making inhuman noises of pain as parts of its form burn away.

 _Sorry, sorry,_ the Sandman apologises, immediately dimming himself as much as he can, poking one or two of the sentient shadows that have made their home inside him into covering his dreamsand, darkening it from bright gold to a low, raw copper that only gleams faintly, like wet blood. He still can't see a thing in the pitch black darkness. _Hello,_ he tries. _I am very sorry about being too bright._

The darkness huffs. “Very inconsiderate of you, shining all over the place. Have you never met a dark spirit?”

 _No,_ the Sandman says innocently. _The little human in the moon tells me to stay away from the dark ones because he does not wish for me to interact with dark ones because he does not wish for me to become a dark one._

The darkness appears to understand the Sandman's twisting sentence perfectly well. “That seems ridiculous to me,” it observes. “You have fragments of darkness in you, but not nearly enough to corrupt you. What little of you I can _actually see_ without having my eyeballs burnt out of my head, _”_ it adds, peevishly.

 _I can't see any of you at all. You are far too dark,_ the Sandman says sadly. _But I can hear you, so you must have a physical body._

“Ah, how rude of me,”says the darkness, and its voice is dark and silky and rattling with nine thousand nine hundred and twenty four other voices, “I do not have much light to spare, but I will try and brighten myself a little.”

There is a shifting noise, like the rustle of cloth over stone, and then eight chips of dim silver appear in the darkness. “That's all I can do,”it says apologetically, and then, “Wait.”The eight chips of light roll up towards a central point, and suddenly the Sandman observes two eyes, identical to his own. They are silver, but with a sheen of bright gold that make them look like a moon before the sun.

 _I see you,_ the Sandman says excitedly. _I like your eyes._

“Why don't you talk?” asks the darkness, and the Sandman's sand tendrils knot slightly in confusion.

_I am talking._

“Out loud! With a throat and tongue, like the humans do. Where is your physical body?”

 _Oh._ The Sandman looks about, as if he expects it to fall out of a tree. _I think it's – oh, yes, I left it underneath a pile of sand. It's in a coma, it isn't much use to me. So I made myself a new one out of sand, but I'm afraid the body was very convinced that it couldn't talk because it's mouth was blocked up...It didn't give very clear instructions._

“How odd,” says the darkness, sounding fascinated. “I wear mine all the time. I can't get out of it, actually.”

 _Can't?_ The Sandman sounds horrified. _How do you manage? Doesn't it require feeding and rest and watering?_

“No. Should it?”

 _I don't know, the humans do that a lot. Do you ever sleep? Do you like dreams? I like dreams. The human in the moon says that my dreams are good dreams._ The Sandman is very curious about the darkness, who humours him indulgently. The Sandman thinks perhaps the darkness is curious too.

“I don't tend to have good dreams that often,” says the darkness. “I prefer nightmares.”

_Nightmares? Aren't they good dreams?_

“What's the difference between a bad dream and a good dream?”

The Sandman shrugs, which is more of a full body flail of the limbs than any human movement of the shoulders. _Don't ask the humans, they haven't a clue._

The darkness laughs. Sandman is enchanted, every one of its nine thousand, nine hundred and twenty three voices sound very similar, though somehow inherently different, that creates a lovely mixture of sound. The nine thousandth, nine hundredth and twenty fourth voice is a little deeper, a sombre jarring note in a melody of harmonising voices, but no one is perfect, the Sandman thinks.

“My name is Pitch Black,” says the darkness proudly, suddenly. “I like fear.”

Everyone has their quirks, thinks the Sandman. Even if he does think liking fear is a little odd. In his experience, fear is a nasty, distracting thing, waking people up and stopping them from wanting to have a nap. _I don't have a name,_ says the Sandman. _The human in the moon says I am the Sandman. Because I am a person made of sand and my body last identified as male. I think. His reasoning is very odd._

“You need a name,” says Pitch Black scornfully. “How am I supposed to call you if I wish your presence in the future?”

The Sandman brightens a little at that comment, and Pitch Black hisses. Hurriedly, the Sandman dims himself again, apologising.

“Hmm.” The Sandman has the impression that Pitch Black is conferring with the other voices inside him. There is a brief pause, then Pitch Black blinks slowly at the Sandman and says, “I will call you 'Sandy'.”

 _How did you think of that?_ The Sandman asks, amazed. Pitch Black must be very clever, to come up with a name that so perfectly fits him out of nowhere! _I like it very much,_ he adds.

It is at this point that Mim sits back down to his telescope and peers through it. It takes a little work to locate the Sandman, and slightly more to stretch a moonbeam down to communicate with him, but Mim hardly feels it when he realises there is another presence there, a presence he recognises. This presence is dark and evil and wriggling with corruption and Mim feels bile in the back of his mouth.

“Get away from that monster, Sandman,” he tells his guardian with barely contained fury, “You _hate_ darkness and evil things.”

 _Oh,_ says Sandy apologetically to Pitch Black, _I believe I've gone against a fundamental aspect of my character. The little human in the moon is angry with me. Goodbye, Pitch Black._

The eclipse eyes blink once in farewell, and Sandy carefully moves his dreamsand so shadows cluster around Pitch Black, and in an instant, his presence disappears.

 _I am Sandy now, by the way,_ he tells Mim proudly, _The darkness gave me a name. He is a very nice darkness._

“He is not a nice darkness! He is evil and he wants to kill you.”

 _Oh,_ says Sandy, and that is the end of that.

 

* * *

 

 

Many years pass, and eventually, Mim's plan to raise Guardians to protect the children of the world begins to come to fruition. He finds a grand toymaker to bring them toys, a regal rabbit to make them candy eggs, a lovely lady to tell them stories, and a fairy from the kingdom of Punjam Hy Loo to leave prizes under their pillows. He even finds Nightlight.

Unfortunately, said toymaker is a ruthless bandit king, as proud as he is quick to anger, the regal rabbit is a muttering recluse, wickedly eccentric and exceedingly unwilling to be forced into cooperation, the fairy queen is wild and savage and tries to kill things on a regular basis, and the storytelling girl is still only a girl, and has an unfortunate sympathy for the darkness. Nightlight is also perfectly content stuck in an icy pond, and whatever Mim does, he refuses to answer.

Thankfully, Mim is confident they don't need the full time watching that Sandy had.

By contrast, Sandy has made a far amount of progress. He is now a fully developed personality, close enough to what Mim expects the star pilot was like once, and has reduced his form to something a little more human instead of the eldritch sprawl he'd favoured before.

It's a work in progress, Mim reassures himself. Their rough edges will smooth out over time. He is right, as time goes on, his Guardians begin to fix each other, sanding down the jagged blades of each other's wildness, devoting themselves to children and developing a fierce protective nature against those that would hurt them.

Well...apart from Sandy.

He doesn't seem to isolate himself on purpose, but the others cannot hear his voice unless they are asleep, and he just finds it easier not to bother with interaction. He is evidently perfectly content with the occasional, illicit conversation with a darkness that, despite Mim's urgings, he has yet to leave alone. Much to Mim's displeasure, Pitch and Sandy continue to seek each other out, sometimes neglecting their jobs for entire nights to converse. Said darkness is gathering in power, growing in strength and becoming a real threat to the safety of children, but whatever Mim says, Sandy refuses to hear it, often blocking out his voice entirely in favour of Pitch's.

Admittedly, Pitch hasn't actually done anything other than his job yet, but Mim knows he will.

“ _Carry my hate for me,”_ a woman's voice whispers, soft and familiar, and Mim lifts his eyes from the telescope to the stars he can see from the port window. He imagines his parents are looking down on him, smiling in pride as Mim takes steps to ensure their murderer will never have the power to devastate a family as surely as he did Mim's own.

Mim sighs and rubs his forehead. He's older now, a young man, chubby and fresh-faced, over-eager, but still so tired. He spends as much time as he can watching over his Guardians, partly because he wants to keep an eye on them but also because he sees them as friends and well – his pale cheeks light up in a furious blush – Toothiana is _very_ pretty. Yet, at the same time it is very taxing to focus his attention on the Earth below him.

His empathic powers are only getting stronger, and sometimes it leaves him with migraines so intense he has to hide in his darkened room, a compress over his eyes, in total silence until it abates enough that he can think again. He can pick out individual people fairly well by now, narrowing the lens of his power until he can read the dim current of their emotions.

The wishes trapped inside children's balloons help too. He does spend an inordinate amount of time shooting them out of the sky for fun, sending his moonbots out to collect the debris. Mim doesn't like litter, after all, but he uses them to read the faintest imprint of left over emotion on them. It helps him tell the Guardians what to focus on.

He takes a sip of the lightwater beside him and looks back down at the telescope, startling when he sees a familiar spiral of multi-hued metallic dreamsand jetting off the planet towards him. His eyebrows raise.

Sandy is coming for a personal visit, then.

“Fred!” he calls, searching for his favourite moonbot. “We're going to have company.”

Mim spends the next hour or so pacing anxiously in the parlour, watching the blot of shine growing closer and worrying over what Sandy could possibly want. He's worked himself into a proper state of anxiety when Sandy reforms his avatar out of the small rocket he has made to get to the Moon. As far as Mim is aware, no one knows Sandy is capable of leaving Earth, specifically, not Pitch. Luckily, Sandy agrees with him when Mim tells him that Pitch knowing of possible ways off the planet is a bad idea, though Mim suspects he only does it to humour him. Sandy doesn't seem very interested in space travel personally.

He almost trips over himself as he rushes to open the door, ushering the small Guardian inside. Sandy grins at him brightly, one of his sharp little teeth catching on his lips and splitting it open with frightening ease. In the next second, sand reforms over the tiny cut.

 _Hello Manny._ His spirit-voice is just as overwhelming as ever, like the rush of tides and rustle of duvets and sleepy sighs all at once. Listening to Sandy talk is like straining to hear the rain in a thunderstorm, his voice is all around Mim, yet somehow difficult to hear unless he listens for it specifically.

“S-Sandy,” he greets, stuttering a little over his words. Sandy walks right past him into the main telescope room, lifting into a low float over the squeaking mess of popped balloons on the floor. Mim feels a sudden urge to apologise for the mess. “W-W-Would y-you like-” He has to pause, compose himself. He is not used to talking to people, and his hands shake with nervousness.

Sandy reads his intentions from his wishes and smiles. _Yes please._

Mim fetches him some lightwater and they settle opposite each other on the white couches Mim made specifically for this purpose, just like they've done every other time Sandy takes it into his head to visit Mim. The familiarity of it soothes Mim a little, he at least expects this.

“So...” Mim says awkwardly, wanting to ask why Sandy is here.

The little man takes a fortifying breath. He is short, shorter than Mim, only really the height of a child, yet there is an age to his large, dark eclipse eyes that belays what he truly is. He is elfin, small and soft yet still somehow wild, perhaps in the sharp claws on his small hands, the shoots of pure black that tousle his brass hair, the paleness of his skin beneath the glitter of his sand, the dark hollows under his eyes. He wears a robe made of his own dreamsand that currently laps over his form, diaphanous and loose and more of a tease than he probably intends, secured by heavy gold bracelets around his wrists, ankles and neck that gleam with precious jewels. His claws tap the glass of lightwater before he sets it down and meets Mim's eyes seriously.

_I want you to ask Pitch to become a Guardian._

“ _What?!”_ Mim wonders for half a second if he has heard correctly. “You have to be joking!” In his indignity, his stutter disappears. “He is the very sort of creature-”

 _I'm serious._ Sandy holds up a hand, interrupting Mim. _Please let me explain._

“He's an _enemy,”_ Mim insists stubbornly, and Sandy gives him a _look._ He subsides.

 _I don't think he is an enemy, you know I never have._ Sandy stares steadily into Mim's eyes as he 'talks', though his lips never move. It is quite unnerving. _I- He is not what you think he is._

“You're telling me that he isn't a monster that feeds off the fear of children?”

 _I feed off dreams and wishes, he feeds off a different type of dreams and a different type of wish,_ Sandy says dryly, _and yet, you accept me. Darkness does not equate to evilness, Manny. I know you know this. And- we have a connection._

“A _connection,”_ Mim repeats, in disgust.

 _Yes,_ says Sandy determinedly, and he doesn't look away, but there is a pale, cream flush to his throat and cheeks that make his freckles, like spots of starbursts on his pale skin stand out. _I can feel- I know that he is not evil. He has brightness inside of him, and I could see that even if I couldn't feel it, because he wouldn't be able to cast nightmares that are so-_ He pauses, as if realising that pointing out how good Pitch is at giving bad dreams isn't exactly furthering his argument. _He is not what you think he is. He is just another person, like you or me, only he was born to do a different job, one that you think is unfavourable. But he can protect the children. He does. With his fear, he guides them, keeps them safe. Manny-_ He breaks off. _I don't know what it is that links us but I know it is there, it is true and I cannot break it, even if I could wish it. Give him a chance, that's all I ask of you. Give him a chance to prove himself, he will surprise you with what he can do._

“You would have me give him a chance,” Mim repeats back, and Sandy nods, dropping his eyes now that his argument has been said. “A chance, such as my parents gave him, when he destroyed the entire universe of people, slaughtered thousands in their beds, gutted women and children and _laughed_ as he fed? You would have me give the Nightmare King, the monster that has been fighting to return to his previous domination since the moment he crashed on that rock, a chance to take everything he wants?”

 _No,_ says Sandy, distressed, _He doesn't want that. He's not that person anymore. He is not the Nightmare King._

“You know nothing about that creature. You are blinding yourself, deluding yourself because of some ridiculous _crush-”_

Sandy's sand flares and then ripples into an ugly, dark slate grey, and he bares his teeth in a silent hiss. _Do not-_

Mim talks over him. “-that you think you feel. You're trying to make him into something he's not, you're trying to force him into a box he doesn't fit-” He reads the current of Sandy's emotions, feels hurt and anger and a surprising amount of self-doubt. “He doesn't belong with us. He belongs down in the darkness, alone, that's what he _wants._ You want to pretend he's something else so you can explain away a foolish _attraction_ you have.” He shakes his head, full of pity, effortlessly reading the current of Sandy's emotions to influence his words. “When I woke you from your star, the last thing I expected was that you would end up being the _weakest-”_

 _If you think there is any of that snivelling little pilot left within me, you are more of a fool than I thought,_ Sandy says coldly, overriding him. There is a building anger, a darkness within that Mim doesn't like.

“So you're still pretending that the reason you hate who you used to be _wasn't_ because he had a chance to do something you will _never_ be able to do? Tell me, what is it like to _love_ someone for all these years and never even see their face?”

Whips of sand explode from Sandy's hands, slamming Mim against the wall. He cries out, terrified, and Sandy seizes him by the throat with a constricting coil of sand, his gold-silver eyes dark and vicious with hatred and hurt anger. He is breathing harshly, mouth parted to make room for his sharp dark teeth. His pale skin is as white as death, his hair black as night, his sand ripples blood red and slate grey with fury. The gold of his jewellery is a stunning counterpoint. _Don't push me,_ he snarls, and Mim can feel his anger, white hot and burning, and underneath it, a storm of grief and hurt so deep it feels like he is drowning just reading it off him.

“You don't even deny it,” Mim gasps. “All you can see is darkness, isn't it? And it hurts him to see you. I know it does. Does he say it feels like you're _burning him?”_

 _I don't hate Sanderson for that. I hate him because he was an ungrateful whining brat. One moment it was, “I wish I could live a little longer, just to make certain Seraphina is well,” I grant his wish, the next moment, “I wish you had let me die, I wish you would let me end,” I don't care. And he was_ useless. _“I can't breathe! My throat is full of sand! I can't speak!”_ Sandy rolled his eyes. _Dreams was the best thing that happened to him, and he hated it._

Mim ignores him, reading from Sandy's emotions that he is trying to cover it up, deflect Mim's attention so he will focus on something else. “And yet,” Mim wheezes, “He still had the chance to do what you can't. _In the arms of the darkness,_ wasn't it? He's seen him. He's known him- and he didn't remember a _thing,_ and you _hate him for it.”_

Sandy is looking at him like Mim is cutting him open, and the sand around his throat is loosening. He thinks maybe there is tears in Sandy's eyes. _I don't._ He sounds so small, like a child in denial.

Mim breathes a silent sigh of relief. He doesn't think Sandy would kill him – he's fond of his new Guardian friends, and there is no way they would condone it – and that is all that protects him. Mim doesn't want to spend the next three hundred years in a coma, repeating the dreams of his loneliest, most desperate nights until Sandy is merciful enough to let him free.

“You freely admit to having darkness within yourself,” Mim says, couching his voice softly, soothingly. “Do you ever think it's affecting you? Changing you? Just like you want to change him. Do you want to make him brighter, Sandy? Strip some of the shadow from him – perhaps, then he could even bear your touch. You must want to _touch,_ do more than touch, after all these years.” Mim pokes carefully at Sandy's seething emotions, trying to nudge him towards the reaction he wants.

Sandy shakes his head, disgusted. _Is that it? Is that what you think I want? Sex?_ He laughs, silently, but the expression is bitter. _No, Manny. You don't have to feel lust to love someone. I've never been interested in that._ He casts Mim a desultory look. _I suppose you wouldn't know what's that like._

Despite Sandy's revelation – Mim supposes he should have known, Sandy has never seemed to feel any sort of sexual attraction to anyone, he has always thought it is simply because he wanted only Pitch, but apparently not – Mim can't help but notice it's the first time Sandy has ever admitted the word ' _love'._ He doesn't deny it, he thinks furiously. He _loves_ that monster.

“If you love him as you say-” Sandy jerks, his eyes widening, as if suddenly realising he hasn't protested that so far, what he has admitted by omission, but Mim ploughs on regardless, “why do you try to change him? Why don't you release his darkness inside you, take back his light? Why don't you let him be himself in the purest form he can, instead of trying to hold onto this _connection_ you think you have, this connection you use to explain away that you love him, that you want to feel _safe_ in loving him?”

Go on, Mim thinks. Take the bait. Agree.

Sandy frowns, seeing past Mim's sympathetic mien. _Even if I could cast the parts of me that are him out I would not. I need them. Without them, I cannot cast the dreams I need. Sometimes a touch of fear is needed to form the sweetest dream, sometimes, darkness is preferred to light._

He lets Mim down, his sand uncurling back into his body, and Mim lands on his knees heavily, breathing harshly. Mim is sweating, uncomfortable in the extreme and he has no idea how he's kept back his stutter this long. Focusing his empathic power on Sandy is giving him a headache, and he grabs in his pocket for his handkerchief, mops his forehead.

“No,” Mim lies, “You're afraid. You're afraid of what he could be. You're afraid he'll leave you behind. You're trying to make him a Guardian, something you accept, something that will chain him to you forever, make him into something palatable for everyone. Because you're afraid of what he could be.”

 _That is not true,_ Sandy says flatly, _I fear nothing of him._ But his eyes still shine, just a little, and his sand gathers close to him, like he is hugging himself.

“It's not your fault,” Mim says kindly. “You are Dreams. It's your job to dream of impossible things, it's in your soul to wish to help, to heal. You are good Guardian. And it's not your fault that you feel this way, that your powers make you feel this way. But you know it's not really true, don't you? This fixation you have with the Nightmare King, it's nothing more than a by product of wishful thinking. He is Fear. He is _incapable_ of love and you know that. You're just confused.”

Sandy raises his head, eyes sparking with outrage, but before he has a chance to speak, Mim continues.

“But,” says Mim magnanimously, raising a hand, “I am not without sympathy. So I will give you this one chance, I will indulge your confusion and show you the truth, on one condition, that you will oath to me. That if Pitch should refuse, you will cast out darkness within yourself, put him behind you and become the Guardian I _know_ you can be.”

 _What makes you think I would ever honour that?_ Sandy demands.

“Because I want you to swear it on Pitch Black's _life.”_ Victoriously, Mim delivers his master-card, and sits back to wait. Trying to be nonchalant, he takes a sip of lightwater to wet his tongue, pretending he can't see his hands shaking.

Sandy is _dangerous._ The Dreamweaver is a wild-card he can't afford in his Guardians. Sandy refuses to take necessary actions to protect the children (surely, he must see Pitch Black is dangerous to them) and such a weakness in the only fighting unit that _protects_ children can't be tolerated. There is nothing that assures he'll take this chance to get rid of Pitch Black forever. But if he does, then worst comes to worst, Mim will have another useless Guardian and one less enemy, or a _useful_ Guardian and the same number of enemies he's always had.

He swallows another sip and then concentrates on filtering through Sandy's emotions, trying to predict his decision and how he can get Sandy to take the oath anyway.

There is a startling amount of fear, not for himself but for Pitch. _I'm all he has, if I mess this up it will destroy him._ But there is also the love, there, deep and dark and thirsty, like a scarlet rose grown in the darkness of a dreamweaver's heart, and that love prompts him on. Mim holds his breath. Sandy wants to give Pitch the family he knows he dreams of, the companion against the loneliness of the ages. _He says it burns him to be with me._ He knows he cannot fill that gap himself, Pitch and Sandy's powers react off each other like fireworks, catastrophic in powerful amounts, painful in close quarters. _This is the only chance you will ever get to give him what he wants. And if he doesn't want it- he won't miss you._ Insecurity, that _is_ surprising. Mim has been using his self-doubt, his doubt of Pitch's ability to feel love at all against him, but Sandy's insecurity runs deeper than he thought.

And then, finally, anger. Sandy is angry at Mim for making him doubt it all. He is angry because he knows he is selfish, he does want to keep Pitch close, but as Mim already knows, Sandy's love is too pure to want to trap him. _I don't want to be forced to be his enemy._ The threat of it looms ever closer, every time Mim drops hints that the Guardians are forces against darkness and fear. _I don't want to be expected to hurt him and feel it is a victory._

Sandy's emotions solidify into resolution, and Mim opens eyes he doesn't realise he has closed, looks up into Sandy's determined face.

_I will take this oath of yours. If you oath that you will keep your word._

Fighting to keep his grin off his face, Mim approaches him and holds out his hand. Sandy eyes him, and then dutifully slides his hot, dry palm into Mim's own, clammy with cold sweat.

“I, Tsar Lunar XII, do swear to extend the spirit Pitch Black an offer of Guardianship, on the condition that the spirit Sandman swears upon the life of Pitch Black if he should refuse, the Sandman shall cast every darkness within himself out, and devote himself to the protection and purity of sweet dreams, as I declare by the power of my birthright, so mote it be,” Mim intones, and looks down at Sandy, waiting.

Sandy hesitates once last time, and then closes his eyes, and says, in barely more than a whisper, _I, Sandman, do swear on the life of Pitch Black, that if the spirit Pitch Black should refuse the offer of Guardianship extended by Tsar Lunar XII, I shall cast every darkness within myself out and devote myself to the protection and purity of sweet dreams, as I declare by the power of my core, so mote it be._

There is a flash of warmth, and a single ribbon of quicksilver from Sandy meets a bright white magical strand from Mim. They twist together once, marking the oath that binds them, and then disappear without any fanfare.

Mim steps back, with a nod. Sandy glares at him and turns on his heel. _Within the week,_ he snaps, and Mim says, “Of course.”

He manages to keep the grin off his face until Sandy leaves. Then he pours himself a celebratory drink and toasts his parents.

He does feel a little guilty for manipulating Sandy. _He will thank me for this later, when he realises what Pitch really is._

* * *

 

 

Pitch refuses the offer.

He does not even wait long enough for Sandy to tell him of the oath he has sworn.

Sandy has no choice but submit to the consequences of his risk.

Sandy _screams_ as Mim forces his moonlight to burn through his body, charring the darkness within him right out, shuddering in disgust when he discovers a nest of writhing fearlings inside, and fragments of what appears to be pure nightmare essence itself. He either banishes it, where it will automatically return to Pitch, or incinerates it.

 _I can't- I can't, stop, please stop,_ Sandy begs, a broken puppet in a field of ice, he is in Antarctica, where no one will interrupt, a little colourless doll stranded in a soft world of white, unforgiving to the darkness that tries to escape from his skin.

“You swore an oath,” Mim reminds him coldly, retreating to coldness, to impersonal disregard to pretend he's not torturing one of his oldest friends, but Sandy still tries to run, still cries and sobs and howls at the agony of it until Mim has moonbeams pin him to the ice, hold him down. He can't help but feel nauseous at the tears streaking Sandy's cheeks, the way he thrashes and begs for mercy, the way he screams like Mim is splitting him apart.

 _This will help,_ Mim reminds himself, over and over, _he will be better for this, this will help, you are doing the right thing._ Nonetheless, he feels his own tears choke his voice as he says, again, _“You swore an oath!” I swore an oath. We have to do this._

 _I can't take anymore, no more, please, please, please,_ Sandy whimpers, and Mim grits his teeth as he tears another fracture of darkness right from Sandy's skin, feels instead of hears Sandy's shriek.

It takes hours.

It is a slow process, grueling and difficult for the both of them. By the time it is over, Sandy is almost catatonic, and Mim can't bring himself to even speak. If he does, he only thinks he will start babbling senseless apologies. He's held himself back so far, reminded Sandy ruthlessly _“you swore an oath, you swore an oath, this will help you, this will fix you,”_ but he feels terrible.

He feels as if something is broken irreparably. But he's not done yet.

He has to hold his hand over his mouth as he pokes at Sandy's emotions, finding the deep wellspring of Sandy's love and gathering it in his metaphorical fist. _He won't forgive me for this._ Mim closes his eyes, and _twists._

Sandy jerks once more as Mim digs bitterness into the fresh scars of the wounds the purification has left behind. _You hate him for this,_ he tells Sandy, drumming it into him with power and magic and every ounce of his empathic skill, _you hate Pitch Black for doing this to you. You want to have revenge. You hate him for this. You will be happy to hurt him when he attacks you. You hate him for this. You hate him for this._ Mim repeats it, again and again, and a poison sinks down into the heart of Sandy's regard, mutates it into something ugly and dark. _I hate him for what he has done to me._

There has always been a thin line between love and hate.

 _I'm helping him achieve what he is supposed to be,_ Mim tells himself. It is the only way he can stomach what he has done.

Sandy is pure now, shining golden as he lies there broken on the ice.

Mim is the equivalent of seventeen years old.

* * *

 

After that, Sandy is different. He turns into the perfect Guardian Mim envisages, as Mim always knew he could be. He is happy, always smiling, small and soft and golden and beautiful, devoted to his friends and a powerful protector. He loathes the darkness with a fierce, burning passion.

Pitch Black learns quickly to despise him back. Fights are inevitable, and Mim watches with pride as his Guardians beat Pitch Black bloody back into the hole he slinks out from. Sandy leads the charge, with burning whips of light that sear Pitch right down to the core.

Sandy swore on Pitch Black's life that he cast all darkness out.

When Pitch shoots him in the back with an arrow full of his worst nightmares, Sandy breaks his oath.

His Guardians come to him, desperate to find a way to fix Sandy. Mim wants to help, he really does. But there's nothing he can do. He doesn't understand. Sandy isn't supposed to be connected to Pitch anymore.

So he agrees to Tooth's plan, revisits all his memories, sees everything flashing through his mind at a breakneck pace.

“ _Jack!”_ A familiar voice shouts, and there is an icy cold touch on his hand. _“Jack! Wake up Jack!”_

 


	29. Flower Crowns

Bunny wandered into his private garden to find Death sitting cross-legged on the floor making flower crowns.

He dropped his paintbrush, swore, and then rubbed his eyes, convinced too many late nights helping Sandy through the worst of his awful nightmares were taking a toll. He must be seeing things.

Death's lipless face conveyed the impression of smiling cheerily, his skull face bared in a constant grin. “Hello, dear Aster,” he said. His voice was dark, cold, like fingernails scrabbling on coffin lids and rushing water.

He wove the last bright pink tulip into the crown and turned his grinning skull face to the grey-faced dreamweaver beside him. “You look much better with some colour, my dear,” said Death, carefully dropping the flower crown onto Sandy's head, being careful not to touch him.

Sandy's eyes opened wearily, much to Bunny's relief, and he smiled faintly.

“You're welcome,” said Death.

The flowers had already withered from being in his presence, but neither Sandy nor Death seemed to care.

“You are _not_ supposed to be here!” cried Bunny, “The Warren is a haven of life! And stay away from Sandy!”

Death raised his hands, getting to his feet. “I'm terribly sorry for the inconvenience, my good Master Pooka. However, you _did_ invite me here, when you brought one of my subjects into your domain.” He pointed over his shoulder with a skeletal hand at the dark, closed off cave where Pitch's body rested. “And I have a vested interest in making certain that this little pilot dies when it is his time to die. I do realise my presence might be destabilising for some of your most excellent plants, and I sincerely apologise.”

Mollified, Bunny blinked. He hadn't expected Death to be so...polite. “I suppose...that's alright then. If you're just doing your job.”

Death nodded, lowering his hands. “I have been longing to sunder his soul for simply _millennia,”_ Death confided conspiratorially, “But Mother Nature is ever so fond of him. You'll be mine soon, petal,” he said to Sandy, who smiled dazedly back up at him. Death sighed, like the creaking of gallows and wind howling through leafless branches.

“Ah,” said Bunny awkwardly, not really certain how to respond to the embodiment of death standing in his back garden peering curiously at his rhubarb patch.

“I'd love a cup of tea,” said Death casually. “If I could be so rude?”

“Of course!” Bunny seized the chance to have something with which to occupy himself. “How do you take it? I have herbal?”

“You are a splendid fellow. Oh, very weak.” Death tapped the exposed bones of his teeth. “I really must be more conscious of my poor yellowing bones.”

Feeling as if he was caught in a surreal alternate reality, Bunny walked back inside the sloping tunnel that lead to his inner rooms to heat water for tea. Death made as if to follow him, but then Sandy grabbed for the bottom of his robe, his face so distressed that even Bunny felt bad when Death cautiously stepped away.

“Don't exert yourself, my petal,” crooned Death, “It's impossible to escape the call of the void and you're only bringing yourself closer to me.” He glanced up at Bunny apologetically. “Excuse me, I had better remain here. I think my form is rather familiar to you, isn't it, little one? Tall and dark and slender. He is very confused, I think.”

“Right,” said Bunny, and went off alone. He had just set the kettle to boiling when the ground shuddered as if there were an earthquake, and a female voice screamed, _“FUCK OFF!”_

“ _Strewth,”_ hissed Bunny, and dropping the kettle, he bounded outside to see Mother Nature embroiled in a full on screaming match with Death, who had crossed his arms over his ribcage and was trying, and failing, to get her to lower her voice.

“Seraphina my dear, you are disturbing the little petal. You wouldn't want to see him fall too early, would you?”

At that, Mother Nature dropped her voice, although her venomous glare didn't reduce at all. “He belongs to _me,”_ she snarled, vines twisting from her feet and reaching towards the unconscious dreamweaver between them. “You have no business in touching what is _mine.”_

“He is not yours, Mother Nature,” said Death calmly. “I think you'll find he's running towards _me_ with open arms. If you hadn't stopped it, I would have already consumed him.” His hollow eyes seemed to darken, and a withering spread out from the hem of his cloak, turning the grass yellow and brittle. “And I _will_ consume him, make no mistake.”

“Not if I have anything to say about it,” Mother Nature responded. “You took my father-”

“I have not taken your father. Kozmotis Pitchiner's soul still wanders. Untethered to any body, but he still moves among us.”

“ _What?”_

* * *

 

Mim shot into wakefulness like a bucket of ice-water had been poured down his spine. He gasped for breath. His entire body felt strange, wrong, itching as if it _crawled_ with ants. He wanted to throw up.

He remembered everything. _Everything._ From the moment of his birth, the thousands and thousands of years, dragging down on his mind like a heavy lead weight. It was sharp, palpable, the secrets of the forgotten past linking together around his mind like a map of perception. His mind was spinning out of control, suffocating under the weight of all these fresh, raw memories, and he felt blackness swim in his vision, though his eyes were still closed.

He focused on the noises he could hear, shouting, coldness engulfing his palm like ice. Mim knew he was going to pass out if he didn't find something to anchor himself, so he clutched onto the cold thing- a hand, he realised, long fingered and slim.

“ _Jack!”_ Someone was shouting, and instinctively, Mim snapped, _“Would you be quiet?”_ He stiffened to hear Constellar flowing from his lips. He couldn't speak Constellar. He'd never been taught how. But -

“ _Jack?”_ The voice was so familiar.

He held onto the cold hand tightly, pressing his thumb into their palm. Rough scars caught against his thumbnail; he gentled his touch, rubbing over the bumps of their knuckles. It was unlike him to seek physical comfort, but Mim felt uncomfortable in his own body, strange. He didn't want to come back to himself.

Mim opened his eyes, slowly. Everything was so bright. Silver, he realised. He blinked blearily. The brightness resolved blurrily into a familiar face, long and thin, sharp, the jutting angles of cheekbones and jaw stretching pale silvery skin taut, cold eyes, like wet slate in the rain, dark and stormy grey and peering concernedly into his, tears collecting in the sleepless hollows, dark grey, beneath his eyes, around his proud nose, curving around his thin lips. When Mim looked back at him, his lips pulled back in a sudden, startling smile, genuine and bright. His teeth were white and straight, and when his lashes swept his cheeks in a blink, there were no tears.

_There were no tears._

Something was wrong with that, though Mim couldn't remember why. He had seen this face before, he knew he had. It took a moment for his memory to sync, and the soldier's name to come to him. _General Kozmotis Pitchiner._

He went pale, yanked his hand to his chest, scrambled as far away from him as he could. The last time he'd seen this man alive and whole, he'd been screaming for mercy in a pool of his own blood. Mim jerked and then abruptly leaned over the side of the bed to throw up, nausea clenching in his gut. _Like a puppet on strings,_ he remembered in dull horror, dry-heaves again.

An icy hand stroked over his hair, holding it back. Mim tried to find the breath to tell him not to bother. He only had the one lock of hair, anyway. _“Shh, Jack, it's over, you came back.”_ He wanted to tell General Pitchiner to shut up.

“Jack...” Mim rasped. “Is Jack well?” English took a surprising amount of concentration. There was a brief pause, as Mim hauled himself back on the bed and looked up.

He froze. There, staring right back at him with wide, shocked eyes, was himself.

“Jack?” The other him asked.

“I'm not-” He clutched at the bedsheets in confusion, unable to take his eyes from the perfect replica of himself, right down to the suit he'd put on that morning. The suit he _remembered_ putting on that morning. “Is this a joke??”

“Jack...” whispered Tooth, and turned a mirror to face him.

“No, no...” The face that looked back was not the face he had seen for the last thousands of years. Pale, icy hair tousled, bright blue eyes. Nightlight's face. Jack's face.

Not his. He wasn't Jack. He wasn't-

He gritted his teeth and cried out, low and wounded, gripping his temples. It hurt. A headache pounded at him like a jackhammer.

“ _Jack?”_ Kozmotis' voice was so, so soft, and tears were streaking his cheeks again and all Mim- no, not Mim, he wasn't Mim he was _Jack,_ but his head hurt and all he could see was his own mother carving agony into Kozmotis' chest, the chest he had leaned against and slept on at the Pole, and it made his gut twist dizzyingly as two sets of memories tried to mesh in his mind.

“Get out!” he screamed. “ _Get him out!”_ He couldn't look at Pitch now. Not Pitch. _Carry my hate for me._ A broken staff and screaming in his soul. A remote general and a beautiful wife. _Not Pitch._ Kozmotis. _Bloody and broken like a toy soldier jerking on a string._ He was so funny, when he danced then. When he danced as the fearlings poured into him and he was laughing and throwing up and there was shouting and flashing light like strobes pounding in his eyes like moonlight, someone was angry and anxious and he could hear a ghost's cry, again and again _Jack come back to me Jack – what have you done? What are you doing? You fool!- carry my hate for me-_

It was too much. He couldn't think. Someone was making agonised, inhuman sounds, sounds like screeching, like moonbot gears when they weren't oiled and like car tires on ice and he wished they would shut up so he could just _think -_

Something hit him on the head, and darkness reached up to envelop him.


	30. Confrontation

Jack looked at Kozmotis like he was Pitch, like he couldn't tell the difference anymore. Jack looked at him like he was filth, like he was a monster, and jerked away in disgust when Kozmotis approached him.

Kozmotis stood outside the room where Jack lay, hearing the low murmur of Tooth's voice as she tried to explain to him what had happened, and figure out how to bring him back to normal. He felt sick, dirty inside, like the fearlings had left behind all their pollution in his spirit. He'd been doing a good job of pretending that he couldn't feel the oppressive memories, the hunger and sickness they had left behind, but the unadulterated loathing and disgust in Jack's bright eyes had caught him on the back foot, and he felt choked, like he couldn't breathe.

Not that he even could.

He stared down at his hands, translucent and silvery pale, criss-crossed with tiny nicks and cuts. There were exactly ten thousand and three scars, he felt them all, itching and burning against his ghostly skin. One for every Fearling clawing their way into his flesh, his mind, his soul, and three ugly brands across his chest the function of which he didn't know. His memories of his life were hazy, drowned out by thousands of years of being Pitch Black. Of the last months of being Kozmotis, he remembered virtually nothing. Once he'd got to the prison planet, there was nothing but blankness, darkness, until slowly the darkness had allowed sentience and he came into awareness on Earth.

Kozmotis wondered if there was such a great difference between them after all.

Perhaps he really was Pitch, just Pitch, only lacking the power for monstrous acts of his own, lacking his body. Perhaps the armour, the memory of who he had been was nothing more than that, a memory, faded and wrung out. A lie.

Perhaps Jack was just seeing the truth.

_No._ He couldn't believe that of himself, not without going insane. A bitter quirk of his lips distracted the path of his flowing tears. He was fairly certain he'd gone past all hope of sanity a long time ago.

His thoughts returned again and again to Seraphina, like a tongue prodding a missing tooth. His daughter. He wanted to see her, to apologise, to see for himself that he hadn't harmed her. He'd asked a few discreet questions while Jack had been unconscious, largely by repeating Seraphina's name at North until he got the point, and North had told him that his dear Seraphina had apparently come to Earth in Sanderson's shooting star, back when he'd been a star pilot, and rose as Mother Nature.

The details had been a little sketchy, and Kozmotis had nearly frozen in terror when he'd heard the story of the crash, caused by him, apparently. He'd nearly  _killed_ his baby girl. Well- not so a baby by then, but the principle was the same. He could barely wrap his head around the fact that not only was his little girl  _alive_ but  _centuries_ old, a powerful, capricious and cruel, according to Tooth, nature spirit. Tooth had apparently known her quite well -  _"I grew up in the wilderness, we became acquainted" -_ and while he found it suspicious that Tooth wouldn't meet his eyes or that her feathers ruffled slightly in discomfort, there was little he could do other than pin her with a stare.

It wasn't like he had even earned the right to be involved in Seraphina's life.

He wondered if Jack and Seraphina knew each other.

Unconsciously, Kozmotis smiled, leaning against his scythe. He hoped so. He liked to think of Jack and Seraphina keeping each other company throughout the lonely centuries.

While he hunted them and tried to kill them.

The reminder soured his brief good mood, and he sighed heavily, reaching up to rub the bridge of his nose and smearing his tears over his cheeks.

For the first time, he thought about Sandy. Was the dreamweaver even still alive? He had mixed feelings about Sandy. Pitch had had an obsession with the little man, and half of Kozmotis' memories of him were fantasies of breaking Sandy's core, swallowing the light that so burned Pitch in shadows, twisted and dark and  _hungry._ Much like the rest of Pitch, Kozmotis supposed wryly. But Kozmotis had sheltered the sweet little dreamweaver in his heart, protected him from the worst of the shadows, and he felt an odd sort of attachment to him. Possibly because Sandy had been the only permanent light in all those years of darkness.

Maybe the knowledge Jack had gleaned from Manny would help Sandy, even if it had hurt Jack in the process. He sighed heavily. He didn't want Jack to be hurt. He didn't want Jack to look at him like he was a disgusting, savage animal about to rip open his throat with disease-ridden fangs.

But Kozmotis had never really been accustomed to getting what he wanted or hoped for, so instead of turning to go back inside and talk to Jack in the hope of stirring his memories, he left for the bleak, empty monochrome of the moon outside. If there was one thing he was accustomed to by now, it was solitude and darkness.

* * *

Tooth smiled at Jack gently, settling into a chair beside the bed. He was sat cross-legged on top, staring down at his staff over his armour clad knees with a faintly perplexed air. He really did look too much like Nightlight like this, she thought.

"I don't..." Jack made a frustrated sound. "I f-feel the memories you're t-talking about. It's all so fam-miliar. B-But I don't- I don't  _know_ them, and I k-keep seeing them from my p-point of view-"

"Manny's point of view, Jack," Tooth corrected softly, and Jack glanced at her, an a high blush seared across his cheeks, disturbingly purple on his pale face.

"O-O-Of c-c-course, T-Toothiana..."

Tooth smiled uneasily. It was strange enough dealing with Manny's mannerisms when it was actually done by the man himself, and not picked up by Jack. Not to mention, Jack seemed unable to look at her for longer than a few seconds without blushing and averting his eyes, which made Tooth have a sinking realisation that he'd picked up more than Manny's memories and speech patterns.

But Tooth was the Queen of the Tooth Fairy armies, and Guardian of Memories besides. She'd be a rather poor example of a spirit if she couldn't help someone who just needed a little gentle reminding.

"Jack," she said, and leaned forward, her wings flaring subtly to keep her balance. Jack glanced at her out of the corner of his eye and fidgeted.

"I have other memories too," he blurted. "Memories- of the G-Golden Age. But they're not- there not from me – ah, Mim. And sometimes...sometimes they overlap? And I s-see the m-memory from t-two ways. They're s-so  _b-bright."_ He shivered, as if the memories hurt too much inside his mind, three different lives pushing for dominance. Jack Overland, Jack Frost, Mim, Nightlight. It hurt, and Jack made a low, distressed sound, hunching over. It felt like his brain was trying to fry itself.

If it hadn't been for Tooth's presence, indirectly easing the pressure of memories, Jack knew he would have much worse than a killer migraine.

"Jack," Tooth repeated, trying to get him used to his name, jar up a bit of the frost spirit they all knew and loved. "Do you remember what happened when you first met Pitch? Face to face?"

"I stabbed him," said Jack distantly. "With a lance. No. He w-was there when I was a b-baby. Wait- why was the Boogeyman there when I was born?" He stared blankly past Tooth. "He screamed," he added conversationally, "when the shadows entered. I w-watched him b-beg. He was s-so s-scared." He gripped his head again, a rough laugh wheezing from his throat. "It was so  _funny,_ he danced, like one of those Punch and Judy shows, all straining jaw-" He stretched his mouth wide and curled his hands into clawlike fists, miming jerking around on the bed, and then dissolved into hysterical laughter, tears sliding down his cheeks.

Tooth watched him silently, a little sickened, and deeply guilty.  _What have we done to you, Jack?_ She'd known, as soon as Jack had been pulled under into Mim's mind that something wasn't right, but at that point the spell was impossible to stop. She'd felt other memories, bright, white glowing memories,  _Nightlight_ memories. Jack was dealing with an influx of two new separate lives, and Tooth didn't think his mental state would survive it. The disturbing things he had seen hardly helped.

"You s-screamed too," Jack whispered. "I'm s-sorry. I w-was s-sorry to see you h-hurting, Toothiana."

Tooth stiffened. "I don't know what you're talking about." She did. Watching her mother die, trapped in that cage surrounded by gambolling monkeys, feathers bursting out from under her skin. "Besides- Manny opened the cage door," she said, a quiet concession to the terrible, ancient gravity in Jack's eyes, an age and heaviness that didn't belong to the light, bright spirit of fun.

"N-No," said Jack. "I d-didn't. It w-was  _P-Pitch."_ He spat the name with the utmost hatred, brows furrowing. "I  _h-hate_ him," he said childishly, "I w-wish I c-could k-kill him."

"He's already dead, Jack," Tooth said warily. "Remember? You carried him all the way to the Pole."

"He w-was  _slimy,"_ said Jack in complaint, and Tooth felt a jump of relief. Jack's memories weren't completely overshadowed, then. "A-And the sh-shadows k-kept t-trying to  _eat me."_ He sounded positively affronted, and had it been any other time, Tooth would have laughed.

"Remember what happened when you brought him back, Jack? Sandy got sick." It wasn't pleasant, to remind him of all the bad things, but Tooth knew Jack had to remember himself, remember everything.

" _N-No!"_ Jack shouted, "I  _f-fixed h-him! I made him better!_ He w-was fine, he w-was g-good, if h-he j-just  _listened-"_

Clearly he was referencing some memory Tooth wasn't aware of, but it was making him incensed, teeth bared and eyes flashing. A bitter chill dropped the room to sub-zero temperatures, and Tooth was suddenly even more glad that cut off from Earth, Jack was virtually powerless.

"Jack!" She raised her voice, and Jack abruptly stopped, staring up at her with wide, frightened blue eyes.

"I fixed him," he muttered rebelliously.

"No you didn't Jack," Tooth told him sternly. "Sandy is  _dying,_ and we came here to find out how we can stop it. If we can," she added. "Do you remember that? Sandy is dying. He might already be dead." It was affecting Jack, he flinched at her words like he'd been struck. Ruthlessly, Tooth continued. "Just like he died when Pitch shot him. Do you remember that, Jack? Pitch  _murdered_ him. And then Pitch-"

"Pitch died," said Jack quietly. "Pitch died...and I- I brought him back to the P-Pole, and S-Sandy got s-sick, and I l-left, and I m-met K-Kozmotis-"

He paused, then his eyes went wide and he lurched over the side of the bed and began throwing up again. Tooth sighed and held his hair back.

" _Kozmotis,"_ Jack whimpered. "S-She m-made her b-baby  _w-watch._ Who the f-fuck does that?!"

"Who are you talking about, Jack?" Tooth asked, rubbing soothing circles on Jack's back.

Jack choked out a laugh, hiding his face. "Selena," he muttered, "Tsarina. My- Mim's mother. She  _h-hurt_ him."

"Will you tell me about what happened, Jack? Do you want to?"

"She made him w-watch," Jack repeated in disgust. "She m-made Mim  _w-watch._ Who the f-fuck makes a k-kid w-watch a  _p-possession?"_

Tooth felt cold. "Mim saw the possession?" she asked urgently, and Jack laughed again, bitter and broken.

"S-Scars. T-Three.  _P-Protection._ M-Make h-him indestructible. _L-Life._ M-Make h-him  _immortal._ K-Keep his g-ghost l-lingering _._ C-Can't k-kill F-Fear." He snorted, trailed off into sobs. " _T-Trap._ T-To k-keep the sh-shadows i-in. F-Forever.  _'T_ _he spirit of this creature Kozmotis Pitchiner shall know no death, no surcease nor reprieve.'_ C-crazy. N-Not t-till sh-she f-forgives. C-Carry m-my h-hate. W-Won't ever f-forgive. B-But s-so w-weak."

"Forgive what?" Tooth asked carefully.

Jack looked at her and said "Archaline," as if it was supposed to solve everything. "L-Love m-makes p-people f-fools," Jack said bitterly. "L-Look what it d-did to S-Sanderson."

His face crumpled, and he started crying again. "I s-swear," he whispered beseechingly. "I s-swear I d-didn't know that they w-were- that th-the c-cores- I d-didn't, S-Seraphina-" His thin shoulders began to shake and he wept.

Tooth wrapped an arm around his shoulders and he leaned into her blindly, like a child seeking comfort.

"I w-was t-trying to f-fix h-him b-but P-Pitch sh-shot h-him and h-he m-made h-him l-lie. He t-tried t-to t-tell m-me b-b-b-but I ignored h-him and m-mocked h-him and h-his connection and I'm the r-reason he's sick, I k-killed h-half h-his c-core, I d-didn't listen, it's m-my fault..."

Cores? Tooth thought, bemused, Connections? What does telling the truth have to do with anything?

She thought back to when she'd sat beside Sandy and wondered why he'd never said anything about a deeper connection that ran between him and Pitch. She bit her lip, stroking Jack's hair, as a painful, slow glimpse of a truly horrific picture of lies, betrayal, magic, and love started to unfurl.

They'd barely touched the Gordian knot of the treasure trove inside Jack's mind, and already Tooth's intuition was telling her it was going to be messy, emotional, and brutal story.

* * *

North handed Manny a glass of lightwater, watching as the small, portly man sipped at it, still rather pale and sweating. "How are you feeling?" he asked, and Manny gave him a small, nervous smile.

"I'm f-fine a-actually. I d-don't r-remember anything other th-than the usual." He mopped his forehead with his handkerchief. Despite his words, he still looked incredibly shaken, and North felt a stirring of pity, and a hint of fatherly pride.

Manny was so much older than North was, and North knew that the depth of his knowledge spanned literal ages, but he seemed so vulnerable and helpless half the time that North couldn't help wanting to reassure him. He was trying very hard, North could see, despite being so incredibly far out of his comfort zone.

Manny didn't like people, didn't know how to deal with them, and the extent of his anxiety was crippling. He was terrified of stepping off his safe haven, hated interaction with a passion, and yet, in a span of a few days, he'd invited four people to stay in his home, including two virtual strangers – he may have watched Jack, but Jack was a stranger to him – opened up his mind to share with said stranger, had several difficult conversations involving detailed explanations, and done it all with only one, minor breakdown, outside when North had brought him out to fix up their transport home, when they were ready.

He'd spoken to Tooth briefly, and seen Kozmotis wandering the lunar dunes by himself, weighed up leaving him to his lonely walk or trying to join him, but eventually decided to let him be. He didn't know Kozmotis that well, and the man who looked too much like Pitch made him slightly more uncomfortable than he liked to admit, despite North's awe of such a blatant hero. He didn't know how to act around the ghost.

Tooth's report had not been reassuring. Jack was confused, switching rapidly between dominant sets of memories. Sometimes he thought he was Manny, others Jack himself, or Nightlight, the boy he'd been before Jack Frost, which apparently meant his memories as Jack Overland were probably manufactured by his mind to give him courage to fight against Pitch.

She'd also relayed some of the disturbing, fragmented things Jack was repeating. Jack had the memories of Pitch's birth – Kozmotis' death – and had explained that the scars carved into Pitch's chest had made his spirit immortal, and kept the shadows trapped inside him. Presumably to condemn him to an endless lifetime of utter torture.

Why the Tsarina had done this was still somewhat unclear, though Tooth had asked him if he knew who someone called "Archaline" was. She also said that Jack kept indicating he knew the full reasons Sandy was sick, though apparently not any cure.

Tooth was grimly hopeful. "Making progress," she said. "He's stopped calling himself 'Mim' already."

* * *

Three days after they had arrived at the Moon, and two after Jack had watched Mim's memories, Jack crept out of the room he was staying in while all the others slept. He'd been clumsy in his dark armour before, now he moved in it with clean grace, used to it. After all, when his name was Nightlight he'd worn it every day, all day, and all night too. The transition from Nightlight to Frost was a little muddy in his head, and Mim's perspective hardly helped.

_Y-You w-were s-stuck in th-that p-pond, I h-had t-to g-g-et y-y-ou out,_ Jack imagined Mim saying. Himself saying. Whatever.

If he were Nightlight, he'd grin and shake his head with a silent laugh. Jack Frost would say,  _Maybe I was perfectly happy snoozing away under there, how dare you disrupt my slumber?_ then playfully blow a gust of wind at him.

These strange, circular conversations with himself were distressingly common. Jack hadn't told Tooth about them. His Nightlight said the bird-woman was wild and would understand fractured minds because of her other selves, the baby teeth. His Mim shied away from talking at all and whispered perhaps it would be better not to bother Tooth? Frost didn't feel much like admitting more weakness. Besides, he'd dealt with worse, right?

All those years alone messed everyone up. Nightlight had hung out by himself for a few centuries until his precious Katherine was born and grew into a Small One who could touch the clouds, Mim had been alone all his life, like Jack. All three were wary of people.

But Jack and Nightlight were free, rambunctious spirits, and they wanted to get outside for a bit, taste the still dry air of the moon and not see walls penning them in. Mim was extremely anxious, but eventually Jack pushed him away and he snuck out instead.

The sky was black and splashed with the dead bodies of stars. Jack looked up at them and realised he knew all their names, he'd met a few of them in Mim's life.

He turned on his heel and caught sight of a pulsing, large orangey star, smiled grimly. That was the remnants of Chandrassar Mansnoozie, Sanderson's brother. Betelgeuse, he remembered, they called him Betelgeuse now. You lost a lot, he thought, a little sympathetically. The clarity age brought somewhat explained Sanderson's twofold desire for death and need to revenge those he loved by fighting back the only way he could, by surviving, by dreaming. Brave little pilot.

Jack felt sorry for him. Sanderson hadn't known what he'd become when he'd fought Pitch Black so hard. If he'd known his destiny was to become the Sandman, outcast forever from his race, from his home, to eventually fall in love with the one he'd so loathed, would he have still kept his glow alight with the fires of vengeance?

Right overhead, those were Mim's parents, Tsar and Tsarina Lunanoff, twinkling down at him coldly. He wondered if they would be proud of their son, if they saw him now. A pale, ghostly remnant of the mighty Lunanoffs, idling away with his tremendous powers, locked away on a far-distant moon for his own sanity. And even then, the enormity of his powers had chipped away at his sanity. The family curse, he thought. There was a reason no one had ever heard of a sane Mage, certainly not a sane Lunanoff, who had madness in their very name.

Mim's parents were both powerful Lunanoff mages down to their very cores, and crossed, their son had been twice as powerful as any Lunanoff before and ever would be again.

He kicked a rock, freeing some of the glowing moondust. Remnants of his parents, vaporised into powder and glowing white, covering the entire moon and making it shine at night. He smiled again, wondered if Mim would like to know that he lived in a graveyard, breathing in their corpses every time he kicked up dust. It was almost funny, how everything seemed to slot together, explained neatly in his head. He felt omniscient. It was dangerous.

He wasn't Jack Frost anymore. For the first time, he felt like he understood Kozmotis, the pressures of different lives in his head.

He kept looking in the mirror and expecting different faces back. It hurt like a jolt to his heart when the face he remembered seeing for so long didn't look back. Jack Frost felt like a stranger.

Jack padded on through the dust that was all that remained of two of the greatest in the Lunanoff dynasty, ignoring the flames of the extinguished stars above. His roughened feet didn't hurt at all when he stepped on rocks, and there was no wind to playfully tug his hair, making him feel empty and lost. He still couldn't breathe out here, but it had ceased to matter to him. The faded memory of a once-drowning was so swamped underneath all the others it had become completely unimportant, irrelevant. Nightlight was used to not breathing. So was Mim. It was only Jack who'd had hang-ups.

As he wandered, far enough that the lights of the complex the others slept within couldn't be seen, Jack caught sight of another walker, though this one drifted above the ground and moved with aimless purpose, as if not having a set direction would make him fall apart. Maybe it would. Kozmotis' spirit seemed to only be held together with the trappings of old Lunanoff magic and sheer willpower.

Once Jack was in hailing range, he filled his dead lungs with no air and spoke.  _"Vellethzarehk, belmorrah-oksh-pyitchshiner."_  The Lesser Constellar was tricky, he'd never really spoken it in any of his three lives, but Nightlight had a fluent understanding. Even if his accent was a little off, he managed. He twisted his hand into the appropriate symbol.

The ghost startled, evidently shocked to be addressed in his own language. He turned, caught sight of Jack, and an odd wariness settled over his tear-streaked face, the hems of his cloak still spreading poppies wherever he walked.  _"Lunagatharehk,"_  he responded politely, gesturing back.  _"May I have your name?"_

So Kozmotis was unsure of who Jack thought he was. He smiled at him reassuringly, and just to tease him, mispronounced the hard 'J', like Kozmotis always did.  _"Shyak," he said. "Aururr Jack. Kozsmotiss."_

_"Shyak!"_  Kozmotis sounded ecstatic, a smile stretching across his translucent lips despite his tears, and he strode quickly forward, in those physics-defying steps of his, to sweep Jack close against his breastplate, burying his face in his hair. Jack chuckled and hugged him back, hard enough that the armour digging into him was uncomfortable.

Kozmotis leaned back to look at his face, something bright and shining and happy in his eyes. " _I did not like you not remembering me,"_  he said.

_"Ash, I remembered you,"_  Jack said wryly,  _"I just remembered watching you die more prominently. At least I learned Constellar out of it. All three. Fluently."_

He shuddered, tried not to think of Selena straddling Kozmotis, pushing him into the ground, the knife.

An icy hand cupped his cheek, thumbing away a tear he hadn't even noticed. Humming, Kozmotis pressed his forehead against Jack's, his tears falling softly onto Jack's cheeks and immediately freezing, like cold rain.  _"I am sorry you had to see that,"_ _he said._   _"I don't remember it."_

Jack smiled humourlessly.  _"Someone needed to, and I'm glad you don't."_ He shook his head.  _"Vellzast- it was not pretty."_

Kozmotis went a little quiet, and Jack smiled. It was awkward, talking about his 'death' with a ghost.

In an attempt to lighten the mood, he added,  _"You know, your wife did an awful job of training that brogue out."_

Blinking, Kozmotis' mouth parted in a silent expression of shock, and he went stiff as a board in Jack's arms. Too late, Jack realised mentioning his dead wife might not go down well.

He let Kozmotis go, uttered a self-deprecating laugh and tugged his hand through his hair, about to apologise.

Before he could, Kozmotis, leaning against his scythe, said,  _"I'm a miner's son and a soldier, I hardly needed a pretty voice like yours."_

" _Kozsmotiss, it's_ awful.  _You sound like you're banging rocks together instead of talking."_

" _You can understand me, can't you?"_ Kozmotis said archly,  _"There we go."_

Unable to hold back his laughter any longer, Jack doubled up. A moment later, Kozmotis joined him, a soft, deep chuckle. He was leaning against his scythe, planted firmly in the ground, arms crossed over his chest and watching Jack's mirth with a warm patience in his eyes.

Jack remembered how Kozmotis had looked when he was alive, warm and olive-skinned and vibrant with colour, unlike the washed out, translucent copy he'd become. Even losing a large amount of blood due to disfiguring scars carved into his chest he'd still looked so... _vivid._

Jack coughed and cleared his throat, blood warming. Obviously, Mim's anxiety was rubbing off on him.  _S-S-Sure, J-Jack._ Nightlight was laughing.

" _I learned some other things too,"_ said Jack, waggling his eyebrows.  _"Apparently, you're pretty good-looking in tight breeches and high boots."_

Kozmotis went pencil-lead grey, his eyes widening, and Jack burst out laughing. Kozmotis sputtered.

" _Shyak! That was the_ fashion,  _and besides- how in the name of the stars-"_

Jack laughed so hard he started coughing, and Kozmotis watched him disapprovingly. All Jack had to do was glance up at the hints of grey blush on Kozmotis' cheeks and he'd be set off again.

He ended up on the floor, staring up at the stars and still hiccuping occasionally. Kozmotis walked over to him and stood by his head, looming over him with a scowl. Jack grinned cheekily.

"Hey," he said, with no regrets.

Kozmotis huffed.  _"How did you even-"_ He stopped and massaged the bridge of his nose with his free hand. Jack smirked.

" _Archaline liked to talk. And I- Mim – just happened to be there."_

" _Stars save me,"_ Kozmotis muttered, and Jack laughed.  _"It wasn't my choice,"_ Kozmotis complained with a hint of petulance,  _"she never let me wear anything else."_

"Oh my God," said Jack.  _"You were so whipped."_

" _I believe Pitch who received the most frequent whippings,"_ Kozmotis replied dryly, an eyebrow raising smoothly.

Jack had half a second of –  _did he actually just say that? -_ before he started laughing, and for the life of him, could not stop.

His heart felt lighter than it had for months.

* * *

Tooth was panicked when she couldn't find Jack in the room he'd adopted for his own. She buzzed through the silent, abandoned halls of the Moon Clipper, shouting Jack's name and trying not to notice old scratches in the walls that could have only come from Fearling claws. North and Mim joined her, and Mim deployed his moonbots and moonmice to search too.

In the end, it was pointless, because just as they regrouped in the telescope room Jack and Kozmotis wandered in from outside, still breathless with laughter.

"Hey guys!" said Jack cheerfully, his bright blue eyes sparkling. He looked like himself again, comfortable in his own skin, but there was still a stillness, gravity to him that didn't belong there.

North and Tooth shared a glance, felt a pang of mourning for the Jack Frost they'd arrived with, who no longer existed.

"How are you today, Jack?" North boomed cheerfully, grinning at Jack. "Is very good to see you out of room, yes?"

Jack laughed, and it was so much like the old Jack that Tooth smiled. Not just because his laugh showed every pearly tooth. North, less interested in Jack's teeth, noticed Kozmotis sliding his palm against Jack's unobtrusively, saw Jack's smile brighten just a bit more as he linked their fingers. The big Russian hid a fond smile.

"Yeah, we- I, got a little antsy." No one mentioned it, but North saw Manny's eyes slide worriedly over to Jack. North's smile turned a little forced.

There was a briefly awkward pause, and then Kozmotis said something apparently comforting in his rippling language, and to North's shock, Jack responded right back in the same language, before facing them once more.

"I guess...we've got to talk about that." He gestured over at the tipping scales, the ball of sweet dreams teetering ever closer to the edge with every second that passed.

The Guardians nodded gravely, and Tooth said, "Do you think you...you think you know how we could help him?"

Mim swallowed, met Jack's eyes. Jack sighed. "No, but I can tell you why."

"Oh,  _Jack,"_ whispered Tooth, and then flung herself into a hug, squeezing him tightly. "I'm so sorry you had to do this and if it doesn't even-"

"Let us just hear what Jack has to say first, yes?" North broke in. "Then we say yes or no."  
They sat down on the white couches, aside from Kozmotis, who somewhat awkwardly leaned against his scythe, resting one hand on Jack's shoulder in solidarity. A moonbot bustled over with some lightwater, and in perfect sync, Jack and Mim said, "Thank you, Fred."

Tooth and North met each other's eyes again. Tooth's dreamsand burn itched and she rubbed the bandage underneath her bracer in annoyance.

Then they all sat, waiting for Jack to begin. The boy stared down at the table, looking slightly lost. Almost an entire minute passed before North spoke up and said, "Toothy mentioned that you found out where scars on Kozmotis came from?"

It was a starting point, albeit a bleak one, and Jack seemed relieved to have it. He offered North a weak smile, and began. "Yes...they were put there by Selena, your mother." He looked at Mim, who blinked and shuffled.

"Why?" he asked, in honest confusion, and Jack sighed, ruffled his fingers through his hair.

"She was in love with Kozmotis' wife, Archaline Pitchiner. When Archaline died, she went nuts and decided that Kozmotis needed to be punished, so she set up the possession thing and carved these symbols into his chest so that the Fearlings couldn't get out, and that Kozmotis would live forever in agony, unless she released the spell."

Tooth's mouth dropped open and she automatically glanced up at Kozmotis, who was staring off into the distance as if he hadn't even heard them, his face like stone. She guessed Jack had probably talked to him beforehand, warned him, because he showed no visible reaction of shock.

" _W-What?"_ gasped Manny. "B-But P-Pitch – P-Pitch  _k-killed-"_

"She was mega-batshit," said Jack unsympathetically. "Like, really. And she really hated your dad, and well, basically everyone. Apart from you, Archaline and Sandy, I think."

"Sandy?" said Tooth, confused. "How did she know Sandy?"

"Uh." Jack cast his mind back, straining to remember. Everything was muddy. "His brother Chandra was friends with Lady Pitchiner, I think? And the Tsarina was just sorta fond of him. Because he was little and cute."

Kozmotis huffed a laugh and Jack looked up at him, grinned like they shared a private joke.  _"He was clumsy,"_ Kozmotis muttered.

"But he was cute," Jack argued, and Kozmotis rolled his eyes. "Come on, he was  _adorable,_ he faceplanted right in front of you after your wife's funeral-"

" _A little bit cute,"_ Kozmotis conceded.

The Guardians looked at each other and thought it best not to ask.

"It was kinda lucky, actually," Jack continued. "Because after she, you know, got Koz possessed and Pitch started trying to kill everything, he basically murdered all the star pilots except from Sandy, and he chased you and your parents," at Mim, "right down to this planet." He gestured out, vaguely towards Earth. "And- uh, Selena saved his life, because she liked him and she was crazy, so Sandy just fell in his star, but that meant Pitch attacked your ship instead, and he killed your parents, but then I – Nightlight – stabbed Pitch with a stick and we fell down to Earth after Sandy. I ended up in a pond for a couple of thousand years and Pitch in a nice dry cave." He grinned. "Mother Nature favouritism, right there," he cracked weakly.

No one laughed. North looked very serious as he queried, "So...Pitch has been alive all these years because of the Tsarina's spell?"

Jack nodded. " _'T_ _he spirit of this creature Kozmotis Pitchiner shall know no death, no surcease nor reprieve.'"_ He quoted, and then rolled his eyes. "Which is why Koz is still with us." He smiled at Kozmotis, who couldn't quite manage a smile back.

"He will know n-no p-peace," Mim whispered softly. "Not t-till she f-forgives." He looked up at Kozmotis gravely. "You w-will endure f-forever, d-doomed to h-haunt the w-world."

Kozmotis bowed his head, huffing a silently bitter laugh.

"Unless she decided to forgive you and release the spell, which she can't do because she's dead," Jack added quietly. He rested his hand over Kozmotis' on his shoulder and squeezed.  _"I'm sorry. You did nothing to her, and you didn't deserve this."_

_"If I have learned anything, it is that justice does not exist," Kozmotis sighed back. "I deserve this no more than Sanderson deserved his fate, and I deserve it no less. It simply...is."_

"Is good story," said North. "And answers many questions. But why is Sandy sick now?"

"Huh, right, this is where stuff starts getting a little weird, okay?" Jack sighed. "So...apparently Mother Nature, who was Pitch's daughter Seraphina, _by the way, she looks a lot like you, except you know, female. And prettier."_

_"Rude,_ " Kozmotis interjected, but he smiled softly at the mention of his daughter.

"Yeah, she was inside Sandy's star, and when he crashed she broke out of it-"

"Wait," said North, "how...?"

"When her mother was killed she ran away and lived with a giant called Titan, who taught her how to use solar winds to help waylay ships. One day she angered Titan and he sealed her in a ball of molten treasure, to become a star. Captain Sandy found her," Tooth summarised succinctly, seeming perfectly familiar with this part of the story. She had said that she knew Seraphina, after all, although Kozmotis hadn't thought they were that close, to chat about the past.

"As I was saying," Jack said lightly, "Seraphina broke out of the star and like, immediately tried to look for Sandy, but she kinda buried him underneath all the sand instead and he died...and she was upset so she made this big oath thing that there would forever be balance, and that everything had to be balanced, so basically all the magic in the world agreed with her and split into parts so no one thing was without a counterpart to balance it out. The cores," he added, glancing sideways at Tooth. "She split all the cores in two. Like, my centre is Fun, but before it was just Emotion, and then she split it down and split it down again, so I have a counterpart with Boredom as a centre kicking around somewhere, and we're linked. You guys all have counterparts too."

"Of course," Tooth breathed. "Dreams and nightmares. Flipsides of the same coin."

Mim looked pale. No doubt realisations were beginning to dawn on him, and he was shrinking back against his seat, looking suddenly smaller than ever. Jack glanced at him with a virulent, shocking disgust, before resuming his story.

"Yeah, so the core of like- I don't know, what do you call it together? Dreams in general? Subconscious wandering? Wishing? - split, but like all the cores it split really messily and there were fragments of nightmare in dreams and dreams in nightmares, et cetera, and the core of nightmares picked Pitch's body and animated it, and the core of dreams went into Sandy and put him in a coma-thing. So basically they're from the same core, yeah?"

"B-But-" Mim whispered, and Jack glared him.

"Hold up, asshole, I'm getting to you."  
"So – when Pitch died, it destabilised Sandy's core? You know, without the other, he cannot live?" Tooth clarified, and Jack nodded. "And Pitch died because of the nightmares."

"Well," said Jack. "Here's the thing. No. Pitch died because this asshole over here made Sandy swear on Pitch's life that he'd never let any darkness inside him ever."

"What?"

"I w-was t-trying to h-help h-him!" Manny snapped. "I d-didn't know the idiot w-would get himself killed!"

"HE WAS SHOT! IN THE BACK! WITH A GIANT FUCKING ARROW- I'M SORRY, BUT HOW EXACTLY IS THAT SANDY'S FAULT?!" Jack shouted, enraged and springing to his feet. Mim cowered, but still tilted his head up to glare back.

"He w-was c-consorting w-with the enemy."

"He was in love!" Jack cried, incredulous. "He was in love, and you manipulated his emotions to make him hate him!"

"I was p-protecting him!"

"You were killing him! You tried to control him, and just because he wouldn't roll over for you like all of the others you ripped his mind away from him," Jack spat. "Don't forget. I've been inside your head, you disgusting little man, and I know exactly what you were thinking."

"If that was so, then you know that I felt genuine remorse, and that I was doing it in his best interest, and for the greater good of everyone!"

"You mean, everyone who wasn't 'dark'?"

"Of course- Jack, my boy, they're evil. They destroy. And I will carry this hate for them and I will never forgive."

"You sound just like your damn mother, you know? That geas of yours working strong? Carry my hate. Carry my hate. Repeating again and again in your head like a damn alarm clock. You're so weak that you wouldn't even break an unconscious spell put on you by a mentally ill woman just because you didn't want to forget the sound of her voice." Jack sounded disdainful, bitterly mocking, and Mim's cheeks tinged pink.

"Shut up! It doesn't affect me, it never has. Stop spreading lies, boy."

"What, like you shut Sandy up? When YOU RIPPED THE VOICE FROM HIM? Didn't anyone ever wonder why he couldn't mindspeak anymore? Possibly because you shredded his damn head?"

"I didn't shred him, I just removed the filth from him and left him pure!"

"No you didn't, you brainwashed him into sharing your racist, elitist view!"

"It was to protect the children!"

"No, no it wasn't. The world needs fear. It needs bad dreams, boredom, hopelessness, despair. It needs all the nasty, less 'pure' stuff just as much, if not more than it needs all the other stuff. You were the first step in destabilising that balance, and ultimately, it was your actions that got both Pitch and Sandy killed," Jack snarled harshly, and Mim swallowed, glanced to the side. "You know it as well as I do," Jack continued, still in that flat, angry tone. "When you pinned him to the ice and tortured him for- how long? Almost an entire day, wasn't it? I remember how he screamed for mercy. Do you? Have you blocked it out, after all these years?"

Mim sank back, defeated. Kozmotis touched Jack's shoulder, carefully, then slipped his arm around him and tugged him to lean against him, rubbing his back in soothing circles. Jack exhaled slowly.

Tooth was bewildered. She didn't understand the exact events of what Jack was referencing, but there was a horrible, sinking feeling of dread in her gut. She remembered Seraphina's disgust after she'd agreed to become a Guardian, how her only friend had abruptly stopped all contact with her shortly after. All those long years, she'd thought it was because Sera couldn't bear to be friends with someone whose very organisation hunted her father. But...

She remembered the day when Sandy had come back golden. There had been a hollowness, an emptiness in his smile, and he'd explained using careful sand symbols that he'd taken a vow of absolute silence, and wouldn't speak, ever again. She'd never thought that he was unable.

"Jack," she whispered, very quietly, "What are you talking about?"

"Sandy came to Mim asking for Pitch to be made a Guardian, because he loved him and didn't want to fight. Mim agreed on the condition that Sandy would cast out all darkness within himself, meaning the scraps of nightmare embedded in his core, part of his soul, and made him swear on Pitch's life. Pitch refused the offer, as you know, and so Mim ripped him apart and made him into a puppet," Jack explained dully, in a flat monotone that somehow made it even worse.

She remembered that too, offering Pitch Guardianship. The first thing they'd done was told him to change, to be different. Pitch hadn't reacted well to the idea of being 'tamed'. Sandy hadn't even been present, Manny had told them to make certain he wasn't there, because Sandy likely wouldn't agree with the nomination.

She felt sick as she realised how much they'd all been played by the Lunanoffs, since the very beginning. She locked eyes with Kozmotis, who looked sympathetic. No doubt he understood the feeling very well.

"And of course, without the light to keep the darkness inside at bay, betrayed and alone, Pitch went even more mad than before..." North muttered. "And the arrow put darkness inside Sandy...so Pitch died...and dreams cannot exist without nightmares, so Sandy sickened."

"But that means...we have to find someone to take nightmares," Tooth said. "And Manny said the only person compatible is-"

_"Seraphina,"_  said Kozmotis, flatly, angrily.  _"I would let the whole world burn before putting her through that hell."_

"It m-may b-be the only ch-choice a-available," said Mim. "W-What's m-more important, one l-life or th-thousands?"


	31. Burn, Burn

“What have you _done_ to my father?” Mother Nature demanded, whipping around to glare at Bunny. Her green eyes flashed like sparks of lightning, and stormclouds began to rumble over the clear, sunny blue skies of the Warren. Plants were growing at a ferocious rate, spurred by her presence, vines and roots twisting into menacing, looming shapes like hooked claws. Danger leapt in the air like glittering whips. She was imposing, every bit as awe-inspiring and magnificently terrible as her father had been, earthy skin rippling over corded muscle, dark halo of hair lashing into a thundercloud, vines snaking over her skin.

Bunny held up his paws, backing away. He had no idea what to say. He couldn't say 'nothing', because he had no idea if the Guardians' actions had killed Pitch or not. He thought the fight last Easter had slammed the last nail in the spirit's coffin. He couldn't help but glance at the sealed off cave that held the body of Pitch, incense burning, powerful roots barring the entrance to stop Sandy getting inside. Several times Bunny had only just stopped the determined little Sandman from crawling onto Pitch's bier right next to the shadow-possessed corpse.

Death stood over Sandy, who was shivering, glassy-eyed and pale, the decaying flowers he'd crowned his head with smelling pungent and cloying, like rot. The loose green robe Bunny had wrapped around him made him look like a sacrifice, and Death was too tall and dark, too familiar to another spirit who would have been all too glad to have a powerless, weak Sandman at his feet. Bunny wanted to tell him to back away, but Death's expressionless, grinning skull face exuded satisfaction, and the gleam of his sharp, sharp scythe made the Guardian of Hope gulp.

“Look, sheila,” Bunny said, a hint of desperation in his voice. “We couldn't have known-”

Mother Nature's countenance darkened further, and the air began to dry out, become harsh and sharp. Bunny saw a few of his more heat sensitive plants begin to shrivel as a heatwave beat down upon them, causing a light sweat to spring up underneath his thick fur. The clouds overhead simply trapped the heat, magnified it.

“Jack found his body,” Bunny said. “In a closet. It wasn't _anything_ to do with us! It was months after we last saw him, and believe me Nature none of us-”

“ _Silence!”_ Mother Nature shrieked, like an approaching gale, the build-up of a hurricane. “You said-” blindly, she turned to Death, “-his spirit-”

“His soul wanders, forbidden peace,” Death answered pleasantly. “His body, after relentless torture and agony because of the Guardians, died.”

“What?” yelped Bunny, “We didn't-”

“I was ever so disappointed,” Death continued conversationally. “When the leader of the Guardians decided to prolong his torture by raising his spirit.” There was a cold gleam in Death's hollow eye sockets as he turned his bony head to leer at Bunny from underneath his hood, and Bunny could only gape. “I was so looking forward to consuming his soul.”

Mother Nature stamped her foot and flames leapt from the trailing hems of her dress, which was flaring into brittle grasses, like fodder for a brushfire. “You will _never-”_

“We didn't touch him!” Bunny yelled, and Mother Nature pushed her hands together and spat a brilliant conflagration of fire at him. Bunny yelped and jumped to the side just in time to avoid getting incinerated. He could hear Death taunting Mother Nature, the Grim Reaper indistinguishable among all the smoke and only infuriating Seraphina further.

The tempestuous spirit's wrath fuelled the flames, and they roared over Bunny's life-giving Warren, licking hungrily at all his fresh green plants. He cried out as he felt them die, caught sight of a glint of gold in the corner of his streaming eyes.

_Sandy!_

The little dreamweaver was crawling towards Pitch's cave, which Bunny noticed to his horror had been unsealed. He tried to run to Sandy's defense, but before he could a ice-cold hand, cold as the grave, grabbed onto the back of his neck and lifted him bodily away from the flames.

“ _Your soul is not mine today, E. Aster Bunnymund,”_ said Death firmly, and then roughly threw him into the dye river.

Bunny went under, coughing and spluttering and accidentally inhaling half of the magical water, before he surfaced, grabbing onto a rock and watching his Warren burn with desolate, blank eyes.

* * *

 

Sandy shivered at Death's feet, feeling cold and alone. The heat inside was so hot it burnt him, burnt him and tore open scars in his core that had never healed. Sandy wanted his shadow back.

 _Pitch,_ he tried to whimper, but his voice was broken, and Pitch had no mercy for a voiceless, backstabbing little star who'd fallen too far and too fast to stop himself from burning out.

He would have cried, had he any tears to shed. _I'm sorry._ He remembered swearing an oath. He remembered _pain,_ and then so much vitriolic _hatred._

It had faded over time, but it had left a stamp of aggression ever since. Sandy wished they could go back to how it used to be, before Mim got so serious about the Guardians. When Sandy could met Pitch underneath the stars and they'd talk about the duties they shared and laugh about dreams. It never seemed to matter that they stood with their backs to each other, or that Pitch had to tap the wall as he passed so Sandy knew he was still present, or that Sandy had to make sure he flew above Pitch so his light didn't blind him. But Sandy had never hated how their powers reacted to one another more the day Pitch refused Guardianship, when his dreamsand and Pitch's nightmares had all but _exploded_ off each other like fireworks whenever he'd tried to get within kilometres of the Pole.

Death wasn't Pitch, but he looked like Sandy imagined he would. Tall, dark, robed and slender. It matched the awkward description he'd begged off Tooth once, _needing_ to know what Pitch looked like, some clue to base his dreams off. She'd told him grey skin, smudged like shadows, long face. Sandy treasured those snippets, the closest he would ever come.

He felt ill, weak. He was fading.

 _I suppose you'll get your wish soon enough, star pilot,_ he thought with reluctant affection towards the little body entombed in sand so far away, unconscious mind giving him constant fuel and vision to maintain his sand avatar. Sanderson was pathetic, yes, but he'd kept Sandy alive all these years with his dreams.

Clarity came in fits and starts. Sometimes it whirled away like Jack on light feet, other times it lumbered, slow and heavy like a yeti, and Sandy could catch hold of it's back and ride it for a while until his head sorted out.

He wanted to look at Pitch's face before he died, satisfy that burning curiosity, that deep need he'd had since the day a shapeless pile of dreamsand had met a lurking shadow with bright eyes identical to his own. He didn't need familiarity with his form – he just...wanted to know.

 _Please,_ he thought, so soft. Pitch wouldn't listen. He couldn't, anymore, not since-

 _The ice._ He shuddered, felt a prickle of welcome heat between his shoulderblades. He was such a wrong, disgusting Guardian for allowing his resolve to crumble as the fear had crept poisonous fingers over his skin, lingering bites that sank deep and destroyed him inside out. Sandy just didn't care anymore. He wanted to _die,_ he wanted to _end._

_Pitch can. Why can't I?_

The shadows whispered soothingly, and he strained to hear them. _Sssandy,_ they hissed. _Sssandy. Come to usss, come to uss..._

Sandy couldn't move, bit his lip and wished he could taste the blood.

Lurid heat everywhere. The fire within had spread to outside, flames licking and lapping over his colourless skin. He sighed. It _hurt._ Like the ice, but hotter, better. Vibrant, charring away at the dull, clinging, useless sand, empty of life, empty of soul- _Pitch took it all, when he died, he was always so greedy, so very greedy but Sandy loved to indulge –_ burning away at the coldness the ice had left.

The darkness loomed over him, and a death-rattle voice spoke into his mind.

“ _Come now petal. Up you get.”_ A swinging scythe cut through the ugly rocky vine walls and the shadows greeted him in a clamour.

 _Ssssandy, Sssandy, yess, come to usss,_ they cried gladly, and Sandy, weak and trembling and delirious, lifted his head.

“ _You're doing absolutely perfectly, my dear,”_ the grave-and-rot voice said warmly. _“Come on. Fight a little harder for me. I need you to find your shadows.”  
Shadow? _ Sandy thought numbly. He wanted his shadow back, didn't he?

The shadows, hungry and so _greedy_ and chained in that ugly dead corpse, and the voice that sounded like it should be frightening but was a relief, the touch of an old friend, an eventuality that came to everyone, a relieving shroud, between themselves encouraged him.

_People are wrong to fear you, Death._

A dry, raspy chuckle. _“Thank you, sweet pea. I need you to fight a little more, for me. There's quite a few future meals of mine who depend on dreams to stay alive till I can come for them.”_

_I'm so tired._

“ _Just a little more, petal, I promise.”_

Sandy dug his fingers into loamy soil, dragged his limp body on shaking arms. He shook and panted, silently, the exertion too much. The shadows helped how they could, reaching out through the gales of thick smoke to hook encouraging claws around his wrists, yank him just that little further each time.

The heat felt less good, now. It seared, great, vicious slaps that raked claws over his exposed skin, hissed powerful commands that, had he any moisture to weep, he would have sobbed at. It sounded like an old, remembered voice that had broke him in pieces.

“ _YOU SWORE AN OATH!”_ the fire roared, tried to wall him away from his goal, choke him with bitter smoke until he couldn't breathe, until his throat rasped and bled and he begged for mercy.

 _It wouldn't be given._ He'd sworn an oath.

He'd chosen duty, last time. He'd chosen Mim, and his new friends the Guardians, and he'd chosen them in favour of Pitch Black and the silent, unvoiced pull between dreams and nightmares. He'd gone against his heart, against his core, his soul, he'd allowed himself to be sundered and broken and tarnished and why-? Because Mim was a Lunanoff and he relished it, the control, the pain, because Mim was his mother's son and his father's son in the best and worst of ways, and just like they had done he'd taken steps to _eradicate darkness._

Pitch hadn't been kind. Nightmares were brutal, messy, emotional things, things that cut and hurt and watched one bleed with lazy satisfaction. Pitch had turned so dark, had let himself be swallowed up in that evil from the fearlings that seeped their inky poison inside him, let himself be swept away in the horror of the Nightmare King he'd been before Sandy's light had illuminated the dark spaces in his heart.

After all this time, Sandy's heart still shone quicksilver, black and gold fused.

 _This time,_ he thought, _this time I choose myself._

The fire had no power over him, and he pushed through it, ignoring the pain, ignoring the voices that screamed in his mind, and rolled into the blessed, cool darkness of a sheltered cave.

The darkness, the coolness stroked over his skin like soapy, soothing water, like the skating, rubbery touches of perpetually damp mermaids from the isle of Sleepy Sands, now lost beneath the waves. He swore he heard the crash and pull of the foaming ocean, saw seabirds and dark twilight skies imprinted on his eyelids, the _hussh_ of shifting sand and flutelike giggles of sirens. He let himself drift, the smoke from the flames making hazy patterns that swirled, dreamlike, into vague, half-known shapes, tall, lean, the shape of straight shoulders, a smoky and wavering face.

“ _Ssssandy,”_ the shadows crooned, old shadows, dusty shadows trapped too long in their decaying shell, shadows who had been imprisoned and left to starve in the darkness for so long they no longer remembered any semblance of the brutal pirates they had been once, feared, so greatly feared they had become _fear itself._

Those dream pirates were nothing more than old shadows, now, absences of light. Sandy had been burning away at them with his whips and his hatred that they'd been stripped right back to their flesh prison, contained within. They amassed plentifully in this earthy hollow, the smoke billowing in only aiding them as they twisted into an incorporeal figure Sandy wouldn't recognise.

“ _Sssandy,”_ said the smoke figure, reaching with searing, shadowy hands that breathed against his dry hot palms and made his delirious eyes struggle to follow. _“A little morree,”_ they sighed, _“jussst a little morre.”_

If Sandy could cry, he would have. More? They wanted him to fight more? Sandy was so _tired._ He just wanted to sleep and let everything fade away. But the shadows were cruel, the shadows were insistent, plucking at raw nerves until, hiccuping with dry sobs that a creature made of sand couldn't express, he forced his heavy, useless, lax body into action. Small hands pawed at the beginnings of a throne of root and vine, a bed of roses for a monster upon which a body of an old soldier lay, the battleground of blood and flesh and shadow written in the scars on his skin.

 _Ten thousand and three,_ ten thousand for fear and broken things, and three for hatred, madness and solitude. He knew without knowing their placements on flesh he'd never seen, the particularly rough one just beneath a left ear shaped like it only dimly remembered what it was supposed to be, a starburst over his ribs, shallow, sliding cuts all along his hands and forearms and wrists, slits like the gaping, wet mouths of screaming children as the shadows had twisted them, turned them into inky figures of hunger with white eyes.

 _Ten thousand and three, and one for me,_ he thought vaguely, spinning away from his own mind, and he felt a low, aching throb in his spine where he'd broken his oath, where he'd let Pitch Black into his heart despite swearing that he never would ever again, breaking his oath. He was a bad guardian. He was. Mim had told him so. He just didn't want to be alone anymore, it was-

_I miss you when I never had the chance to have you._

He didn't know who was thinking. Was it the evil bad darkness inside, or the bright, bright, hurting gold fire bubbling under his skin?

 _He was so tired of hurting._ He'd grown used to feeling of too-pure dreams searing through his veins like liquid, molten metal, but it didn't make it any less painful, any less torturous. He'd never bothered to tell anyone that each new dream he breathed life to raged like fire from a rough and broken throat, escaping in rippling pennons of flame. He was expected to deliver thousands in a single night. Jack had once remarked that Sandy was the _warmest_ thing he'd ever known, Sandy didn't tell him it was because he was burning up from the inside out.

 _There's nothing left of me to eat up, anymore,_ he thought, wanted to laugh out loud but Sanderson's mouth was blocked up with sand and he could never dream of any vocal action that wasn't suffocating. Sandy lived every day feeling as the pilot had felt seconds before he died, the panic of being unable to breathe, to speak, body weighed down and crushed, penned in from all sides, the call of darkness reaching like a relief.

For so long he'd thought his pull to darkness was nothing more than a remnant from an unconscious pilot buried underneath all that sand, the pilot from which Sandy had stripped all the knowledge he could, knowledge of how to move, how to dream, how to read wishes. What it felt like to die.

“ _Sssandy,”_ whispered the darkness, and he wanted to choke around the sand still blocking his throat, despite all the times he'd tried, instinctively, to clear his airway, the airway he didn't know how to use, because _stars_ he still sounded so close, even when he'd been so far away.

“ _A little morre, for uss, for me,”_ the shadows coaxed, and he dug his little, soft hands into the roots, tried to haul himself onto the bier.

They hadn't even _burned_ him, the animals, he thought, angrily, detached from the emotion as if it were being shouted down a long tunnel. They hadn't even _burned_ him and whispered their blessings as his spirit joined the stars to guide the next flock of stupid apes that didn't understand the slow rotations of true stars. They couldn't even speak the language of _light._

“ _Not the Golden Age, anymorre, Sssandy,”_ the shadows whispered, soft with amusement, _“I doubt they'd want me watching them, anyway.”_

Sandy bitterly missed his claws as he finally pulled himself, gasping for breath he'd never take in, onto the stone. It smelled like incense and decay, there was something cold and fleshy against his cheek that stung like shadows. He felt wisps of turgid darkness lap over his cheeks and chin, and a cold voice like a shot of terror to his spine, _“Hello. Finally. You have no idea how tiressome it iss to be trapped in a fleshhbag that can't move.”_ It was low and howling, wind in shutters and creak of floorboards and licks of goosebumps up his spine. Dazedly, his own soft lips stretched into something like a smile. It felt like peace.

Sandy thought Pitch was barely getting started when it came to the trials of having a dead body for a physical form. He turned his head blindly into it, felt the shadows curl affectionately around the shell of his ear, tangle wild knots into his hair. There were scars against his lips, automatically his eyes closed. There was never any point trying to look directly at Pitch, all he ever saw was darkness too strong for his light to penetrate. An unwanted thought intruded, wasn't he hurting Pitch, with the liquid fire that bubbled in his veins?

The shadows in his hair tugged. _“Let me freee,”_ Pitch begged, _“let uss out.”_

Tiredly, Sandy flailed his arm and hit Pitch's chest. _Do I have to do everything for you?_ He managed to think, although it felt like his mind was floating away from his body, and his sand avatar was starting to crumble at the edges. His skin, the colour of forgotten parchment, looked cracked and yellow next to the bruises and secrets grey of Pitch's.

Pitch swore at him pleasantly, Sandy rolled his eyes as he fumbled blindly over Pitch's empty stomach, unbothered by the squishing feel of the dead, cold flesh, the shadows directing his hand by flexing underneath the taut skin. His palm grazed over the nastiest, ugliest scar cut into his abdomen, and he paused, waiting for affirmation.

“ _There,”_ Pitch said, gleeful, tense and expectant.

It took a bit of work to rip the skin, working his soft fingers into scar tissue and feeling the pull as ancient lunar magic resisted his touch. He clenched his jaw, scraped messily at _Trap,_ felt dead flesh squelch and move against his fingers. It was cold and slimy, viscous stomach fluid oozing over his tiny hands. His stomach had exploded, skin sagging and cold blood collecting into bruiselike pools, dependant on gravity. The shadows within eagerly assisted, gnawing at their prison from the other side.

 _Trap_ was still holding, despite the large hole he'd torn in Pitch's exploded stomach, the eager, densely packed shadows visible as a seething mass of black, shuddering with excitement, beneath. They wanted _out_ of their deformed prison, nipped at his fingertips like shoals of deadly fish.

Sandy shakily began to push against the cage of lunar magic keeping Pitch's shadows soldered to his body. He was too exhausted to question where it came from, thought briefly perhaps Mim had put Pitch through the same purification torture he had Sandy, felt a pang of pity.

The magic was _strong,_ but raw, unpracticed. Whoever had laid it was clearly a powerful mage, pushing power to make up for lack of skill. _Completely untrained,_ he thought, a little disapprovingly, that much power untrained had probably ripped their mental state into fragments.

He remembered whose gut he had his fingers in and thought their body had most likely followed immediately afterwards.

Sandy pushed and pulled and wheedled and slowly convinced the wary, foreign magic to relax. The moment it tentatively unwound, he gathered it in his fist and snapped it in half. The centuries old containment cracked, and the shadows erupted from the corpse like a volcano spewing poison, their shrieking so loud it drowned out the whole world.

The shadows collected in an ominous, puffy cloud right above Sandy's head, searching for the nearest body to possess. Sandy stared up at it wearily and had half a second to think, _Fuck,_ before the darkness descended upon him, and he was lost.

 


	32. Fusion

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HEY! So, um, hi guys, I hope you like the chapter! But anyway, since I'm two off a hundred reviews on fanfiction.net I've decided to do a gift-oneshot as a thank you. Instead of picking one number reviewer, I'm just asking you guys to leave your suggestions/prompts as for what you want in this oneshot and I'll stick in a hat, that way everyone on AO3 and ff.net can be included! The review system is kinda a little messed up on AO3, and of course my own additions have been messing up the counter. So yeah, that's it. You can pick anything you'd like to see me write, as little or as much detail as you'd like!

Sandy stumbled into some sort of clarity and found that he wasn't in the Warren anymore. It was a mindspace, changing and fluctuating with each passing thought or memory until it had almost completely changed, and then changed again. One moment it was a still, perfect rendition of the smoky woods where he had first met Pitch, sprawling dreamtrails hanging between branches and a shadow crouched and hunched beneath, the next that beautiful cacophony of frozen stone in Barcelona, the famed cathedral, a shadow looped around one spire and a spiral of sand another, a Russian village long ago, stout timbers and ruddy cheeks braced for cold.

There was rarely anything particularly striking about the places the environment spun through, significant for no reason but for that in each place, Pitch and Sandy had met together, though be it for only _seconds._ The North Pole flashed by, the warm scent of baking cookies and bustling yetis, jingling elves, and Sandy waited with an uncomfortable lump in his throat until it passed.

He wandered for a little while, moving in a direction that wasn't _forwards,_ as his position never seemed to really change, but gave him an action on which to focus his thoughts.

He looked down at himself once and winced. He was his accustomed gold once more, brightly shining, but for ragged tears where parts of his body were entirely missing, hollow spaces that didn't even hurt or bleed. He was missing a large section of his left shoulder, where there was simply _nothing,_ a straight hole bored through his right hip. He trailed a smokiness behind him wherever he went, a cold whiteness that nipped at his heels like Jack's frost.

Yes, he was actually walking. It was bizarre, since he hadn't ever really _walked_ in his life. The avatar he'd managed to construct from Sanderson's very unclear dream-memories was not equipped for any travel that wasn't sitting in something or floating. Tiny feet and all but nonexistent legs left him with a peculiar shifting gait, like a penguin. He grinned at himself. How ridiculous.

“ _Sandy.”_ It was soft, dark, shifting. He'd know it in a heartbeat.

Instinctively, he closed his eyes even as he whirled around, a gasp, an _audible_ gasp, tearing from his throat. _“Pitch!”_ He could spirit-speak, here. He almost wanted to cry with relief. _“Pitch! Pitch...”_

“ _Shh.”_ And it was him, Sandy's imagination could never be so perfect, so accurate. He was rich and dark and amused, like chocolate and wine. _“I'm here.”_ There was a soft rustle, like the sweep of a cloak across stone, behind him.

Sandy held his breath, because Pitch was behind him and the last time he'd _shot_ Sandy, and it had hurt, hurt even as it felt like coming home to the darkness. He barely dared to hope, felt prickles of fear over his spine. It had hurt him terribly and he'd suffered for it tremendously. But...the pleasure of giving in to the darkness and allowing the fire in his veins to die out had almost been worth it.

“ _I can't hurt you, here. Nor can you me.”_ A pause. _“Even if I could, I wouldn't.”_

Sandy's heart gave a funny lurch, and he bit his lip to hide the sting of tears. He remembered old times when the only time Pitch would raise a hand to him was in joke, not the brutal, awkward fighting the recent centuries had seen. It seemed he really was capable of human things here, not limited by his powers, he thought, as he blinked past his tears, perhaps, he could even...? _No._

“ _Turn around, dim your defenses,”_ said Pitch softly. _“I want to see your face.”_

Sandy's heart thrummed, reflected all around them as the shared mindscape twisted in uncertainty. So close. Pitch was _right there,_ he could finally put to rest the haunting curiosity, the need to know that had dogged him since the moment two curious young spirits had met beneath the sprawling branches of a tree. He was afraid, afraid to take the step and invite the change. Bitterly, he thought of all that had already happened – how much further could he sink? Half of his core's physical body dead, his own faltering, and now his avatar possessed by his other half's core. Sandy had always been able to sense that the shadows and nightmares that made up _Pitch,_ Pitch Black his counterpart, were still alive, only trapped within Kozmotis' decaying flesh. But then Sandy had let him free, hadn't he?

He so wanted to know what was behind all that formless darkness. _“I'm afraid to look at you.”_

There was a pause, and he knew he was stating the obvious, his parts of the mindscape positively rippled with his emotions, and Pitch was able to sense it anyway, but it was courtesy to say it. Courtesy had always been important when interacting with another immortal, someone who could easily carry grudges for _centuries._ He supposed his relationship with Pitch wasn't exactly salvageable by politeness.

The darkness coiled, low and rushing like foaming waves lapping around his fortifications. When Pitch spoke again, he'd slipped into the cool, arrogant facade he so loved to play, automatically putting Sandy at ease. Neither of them were used to this soul-baring with each other, and their history as enemies was so much more scarring and darker than their seemingly-brief alliance. _“You don't know what you've been missing out on,”_ he stated proudly, _“I'm immeasurably beautiful.”_

Despite himself, Sandy breathed silent laughter, too accustomed to the action without a voice that he forgot that he could, if he wanted, laugh out loud. _“Figured that out all by yourself, did you?”_ he teased, and Pitch huffed.

“ _My face is glorious, of course I stared at it.”_ The darkness remained gently prompting, urging him to turn his back. Pitch hadn't moved at all, and Sandy knew that he wouldn't push it.

Inexplicably, the knowledge reassured him. He supposed Pitch had the most knowledge with dealing with irrational fears, he thought, with a twitch of a smile. Slowly, he took one more fortifying breath and carefully turned on his heel, keeping his face downcast as he concentrated on his light, dimming himself and drawing it in.

In this mindscape, their powers didn't exist. The only barriers of sight were psychological ones.

Pitch inhaled, but Sandy was suddenly distracted from anything so unimportant when he caught sight of two slim, shadow-clad feet, further up, long, long legs, _he was so damn tall,_ a flaring robe, grey skin exactly like Tooth had promised, a long face with eyes familiar to him staring out of an alien face, angled and sharp and all edges, hairless brow and jagged gash of a mouth, thin-lipped and dark, cheekbones and jaw sharp enough to cut. Patches of silver illuminated odd, mismatched stretches of his form, patches that almost perfectly matched Sandy's missing pieces. Pitch had taken them when Sandy had had them ripped out.

His mouth fell open and the breath left him in a surprised rush, shock turning him into a wondering statue. Pitch was _perfect,_ shadow and nightmare and perfect container for the wicked, sly mind he'd fallen in love with, every inch of him elongated razor-whip and a beautiful contrast to Sandy's own, soft, exaggeratedly round form. _“Someone find Kozmotis Pitchiner and_ thank him,” he whispered, convinced that had it been any other shape, the aesthetic of the Nightmare King would not have fit half as well. He greatly admired Pitch's features, so different to his own.

Pitch's own eyes were wide, but instead with bemusement, _amusement. “You're tiny! And_ cute!” he spluttered, _“Look at you! This is what I've been fighting all these years?? A tiny little creampuff?”_

Sandy raised an eyebrow and folded his arms over his chest, tapping his foot as Pitch erupted into not wholly kind mirth, laughing so hard he doubled up and wrapped his slender arms over his gaunt stomach in an effort to hold onto his breathless laughter.

“ _I was scared of you!”_ he gasped incredulously, tears streaming from his eyes. Sandy's disgruntlement set him off again until he was positively _wheezing._

“ _Are you done?”_

“ _You're barely past my knee!”  
_ Sandy sniffed. _“We can't all by freakishly giant,”_ he said haughtily, and Pitch recovered himself enough to shoot Sandy a disbelieving look.

“ _Freakish? Says the floating pastry!”_

“ _That's just rude,”_ Sandy said, a frown appearing on his small, round face.

Pitch was unable to reply, gasping for air and grinning. He looked relaxed like this, the stars in his dark face lighting up and sparkling with humour. Sandy felt his own lips curve up into a happy smile in return, something warm lighting beneath his heart. He decided his favourite thing in the world was Pitch's smile.

“ _You're very beautiful, Sandy,”_ Pitch told him, face guileless, _“I wish I had had the chance to see you like this more before we...well, before I possess your spirit.”_ He instantly sobered, and the mindscape reflected the change in mood, darkening into a glassy, suspended storm they'd once tangled in above Rio. _“The shadows are already within you, but your core is resisting me. Once you let me join with you...”_ he shrugged. _“Who knows what will happen.”_

“ _Dreams and nightmares, united again...”_ Sandy breathed a harsh laugh, the bitter sound of it shocking him. He wasn't used to his own voice, wasn't used to Pitch the way he used to be. The way he should be. _“Would you believe me, if I said I was sorry for all the fighting?”_

“ _I don't have to,”_ said Pitch airily, _“It doesn't matter. Not anymore. And besides, our fight is merely centuries, an eyeblink in time. Our core has existed since the very first creature. What's a few years of squabbling to defeat all that coexistence?”_

“ _Philosophical. I didn't expect that of you.”_ Pitch had always been a raw sort of creature, flipping to emotions quicker than the spin of a penny. Sandy had been the one who was mired in deep, silent reflections, like pebbles on still water. Pitch was a tsunami, whipped into a frenzy and charging onwards to his next target, breaking himself out on the rocks of exhaustion.

“ _There's a lot of time to think when you're stuck in a dead fleshbag,”_ Pitch remarked dryly, and Sandy hid a smile.

He sighed. He had heard brutal, horrific things of shadow-possession. He had never seen it, but even by its nature it hardly sounded a pleasant process. _“Does it hurt?”_ he asked childishly, wanting reassurance, wanting to hear Pitch speak again.

Pitch hesistated. _“I'll be honest with you,”_ he said slowly, _“the personification of fear forcing its way inside you is never pleasant. But I won't be trying to rip you apart – just get inside.”_ The memories he had torn from his physical body remembered all too well the agony of shadows tearing their way in, being a mindless, abused host for darkness. But he had a little practice now, didn't he? Memories to fall back on. And the Fearlings hadn't _cared_ about hurting Kozmotis, had _wanted_ to. Pitch wouldn't be forcing anything unnatural, but reuniting something that should have never been sundered.

“ _Careful,”_ Sandy remarked sarcastically, _“I might start thinking you only want me for my body.”_

This was familiar, already established, their dry, sarcastic battle of wits over scythe and whip to fall back on. Pitch's lips twitched into a wholehearted grin as he replied, wheedling, _“Well, obviously it was your beautiful eyes I noticed first-”_

Sandy rolled his eyes and a whip of sand hooked out of nowhere and slapped him upside the head. Pitch squawked indignantly, puffing up like an insulted peacock. _“Ow!”_ he protested, offended.

“ _Our eyes are identical, you dolt,”_ Sandy said flatly, with not an ounce of remorse.

Pitch glared. _“Of course you would find a way to hit me even when I'm nothing more than an_ entity,” he grumbled. His joke hadn't been _that_ bad. Sandy was obviously testy.

“ _It's hardly my fault you lost your last body.”_

“ _Well, it kind of_ is, _as you swore that stupid oath,”_ Pitch sniped. Sandy's memories were mixing with his own, the past unveiled through Sandy's eyes. It didn't matter now, and Sandy reacted accordingly, huffing and raising his eyes heavenward for strength.

“ _To be honest, the prospect of being trapped in enclosed quarters with you for an eternity is more terrifying than the possibility of losing my soul and sanity,”_ he retorted, and Pitch gaped.

“ _Oh..._ wow...” He had no other response. That was just _harsh. “This is going to be a match from hell.”_ He smirked. _“I suppose you could say it's an absolute-”_

Sandy's eyes flickered to his, begging him, _pleading_ him not to say it.

“ _\- nightmare.”_

“Sweet nebulae...” Sandy groaned, and Pitch grinned victoriously. _“There are no words to describe...”_

“ _Come on Sandy, don't lose your grains now,”_ Pitch quipped.

Sandy shot him a killer glare. _“Why me?”_ he asked pitifully. _“What did I ever do to deserve this?”_

“ _I'm having an utter_ dream _of a time,”_ Pitch said brightly, pretending not to hear Sandy muttering under his breath, _“Do you_ know _how many people die in their sleep?”_

He opened his mouth to say another one, but before he could Sandy flew at him, small, soft hands just shy of physically closing his mouth and actually _touching_ him in an effort to stop the awful puns. It was an instinctive reaction, but suddenly so close, so close to the final tipping point, Sandy shied away.

They were left with bare centimeters apart, Pitch's eyes sad and knowing and Sandy confused and afraid.

It wasn't that he didn't want their cores to realign. But allowing it would destroy not only himself but Pitch, and Sandy had been among mortals all his life, listened to stories of _death_ and _ending_ and he didn't want to be the one to kill and end Pitch, erratic, mad Pitch who collected golden things because they reminded him of Sandy, Pitch who rode horses whooping into the night, Pitch who was the inhale to his exhale, the black sky to his stars, the shadow to his light. He didn't want to _kill him._

“ _Don't think of it as death, think of it as the next step,”_ Pitch coaxed softly. _“Imagine what we could be if we were one person and not fractured in two like this.”_

Sandy smiled slightly. _“What goes better together than...?”_

Pitch huffed, but there was no real annoyance in his fond smile. _“You air-headed tiny floating creampuff,”_ he said, without bite, and took Sandy's face in his hands, his palms bigger than Sandy's cheeks.

“ _Shadow-sneaking ratbag,”_ Sandy replied affectionately, pressed their foreheads together, and _let go._

Dreams and nightmares collided like a thunderclap, rushing and twisting to become one thing. Swirls of gold and black mixed like tubes of thick paint, and a bright, shimmering silver took their place as at long last, the two separated cores fused, the personalities they had built around themselves in their separation crumbling into nothing, cast aside, as the shadows claimed the sand and the sand claimed the shadows, vibrant, clashing colours settling into a peaceable harmony. It came with the blissful, painful relief of jigsaw pieces, their vulnerable scars scraped raw, being fitted back together and sealed with currents of fast-flowing quicksilver.

Far, far away on the remnants of a once-great sandy island, a small body trapped beneath shifting layer after layer of dull, powerless beach sand jerked slightly, eyelids fluttering for half a moment - _eclipse eyes –_ before at long last, the ancient heart stopped, and stopped forever. A ragged skeleton in a dark cloak scooped up the bright pearl of the last star pilot's soul, tipped back it's head and swallowed it whole. Death smiled. _“Delicious.”_

Even further away on an isolated moon a ghost, a dead boy, a fairy queen, a bandit king and a outcast tsar watched as two cracked orbs, one gold, one black, swirled and eddied like water, meeting in the middle of the scale and forming into a hard, polished orb of glittering silver, and the balance settled into even, straight lines once more.

Mother Nature pressed her hand to her chest as she felt the nagging feeling of unbalance right itself, and her eyes widened as a coruscating whip of silver sand latched around her wrist and that of the Pooka beside her, yanking them into the air and to the very feet of a howling cyclone of luminous, radiant sand, out of which a figure stepped.

The last thing Seraphina and Bunny knew before sleep overwhelmed them was a slow, cold, _hungry_ smile.

 


	33. Dream Rising

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heya. This is just about the oneshot. I'm leaving it open a little while longer, until the next chapter is posted (knowing me, that will be around two or three days, though it varies.) I'll put the prompts I've already received down after the chapter. So if you want to enter, leave a review/comment/pm me or find some way to let me know, okay?

The _sand-mass-dreams_ took a little while to settle on a _shape-avatar-me-form_ , poking and prodding at the outlines until it felt right. Everything either felt too tall, too thin, too short, too round, and Dream just couldn't find a happy medium between the two meshes of vague _this-is-what-I-am_ shapes in their head. Finally, they settled on a base enough shape that moved around fluidly like _wet-landbound-water-light_ but looked close enough to a _human-shape_ that it appeased them.

Proud, they tilted their head as the two funny _sleep-_ creatures collapsed in front of them. Dream had an _image-thought-memory_ of licking their _communication-mouth-lips_. They were so _hungry-empty-wanting_ , and if a _dreaming-meal-food_ decided to throw itself at their _balance-foot-paddle-feet_ , they weren't going to complain.

For _happy-cold-laughter-fun-amusement_ 's sake, they dropped the _furry-hope-rabbit-Pooka_ into a howling _sweat-fear-nightmare_ , watching his claws scrabble at the _living-ash-earth_ in delight. The rich aroma of his _fright-panic-terror_ wakened some old, tired memory of feeding, just as the _green-nature-life-human-female_ 's frantic wishes made some part of them that had once been _starblood-stardust-wisheater-star_ , raised and fed on wishes, _twitch-curious-feednow?_. The woman, for contrast, they left a halcyon, beautiful dream of honeycombed hallways of song and happiness, esoteric and confusing but undoubtedly joyful. But Dream wasn't interested in either _mind-fears_ or _heart-wishes_ , simply their _sleep-dreams,_ watching with removed _curiosity_ - _interest_ as silver grains of _sand-mass-shape_ formed on their temples as Dream slowly pulled their dreams out of their _flesh-cage-bodies._

The small grains of sand rushed into their shifting _mass-avatar-shape_ , and Dream _thought-memory-hummed_ in _warm-happy-sated-good_ feelings. They cocked their head, something like a grin stretching the ragged tear of their mouth as they sifted through the thousands of silvery Dream trails snaking over the _slab-comfortable-sleep-beds_ of sleeping _bright-ape-humans_ all over the _round-earth-world (sector7855milkywayonemoon(moonclipperhurtpainlance))._

Eager to explore, they stepped into the nearest shadow and reformed their sand in the bedroom of a sleeping young human. The human was very odd looking to their eyes, flat faced, squishy, wasn't it constrained, in that fleshbag? How did its spirit breathe? But it was dreaming, anyway, so Dream peered at it and spun them a glorious sweet dream of dancing on shoals of dolphins across a sea made of rippling darkness, just a _touch of fear_ in _what-happens-if-I-fall?_ Dream watched them for a little while, small fingers tipped with claws poking their squishy cheeks with curious delight. Humans were very odd shaped creatures indeed!

The dream changed, and a ghostlike man stepped into the water, carrying a scythe and spreading poppies wherever he went. He did not speak, but the girl saw him and cried out, _“Ghost man! Did you take Daddy where he needed to go?”_

Dream prodded the girl and the ghost whipped around with bared teeth, blood sluicing over its armoured chest and neck snapped. The girl screeched, and Dream giggled, cupping their hands over their mouth and bouncing on the spot like an overeager child at the fête. The girl was so much brighter, fresher, like the _thought-memory_ of _biting-tearing_ into a _sweet-sharp-citrus-fruit,_ unlike the _adult-female-woman_ they could feel slumbering in the next room over.

_Children are sweeter,_ they concluded,  _more...sustaining._

They dropped through the shadow underneath the bed with a shimmer of silver sand, reappearing in the light of the  _big-round-eye-moon(hurtpainlunanoffhatred)._ Dream tilted their head up to meet the Moon's stare, determined not to falter in their impromptu staring contest. 

It was only when the sky began to lighten and the first rays of the sun cast their light on the twinkling figure that they moved, hissing and screeching in alarm as their night-sensitive body blistered. They disappeared immediately into the cool, welcoming darkness of the shadows, and chased the night a little longer.

There were so many dreams to see, minds to play with, everything was new and exciting, and there was no one and no thing powerful enough to stop them.

* * *

 

“W-Well.” Mim broke the pin-drop silence with his habitual awkwardness, rocking back on his heels and paling when they all looked at him. A fidgety and short man, he was deeply underwhelming and with all the other, bright vibrant personalities in the room, it was no wonder that he was frequently overlooked. He mopped his pale, Moon-shaped face with a yellow handkerchief. “I s-suppose it's s-sorted, th-then.” He sounded relieved. No doubt he was thankful the problem had been taken out of his hands.

The Guardians were sitting in the main telescope room, staring dumbfounded at the great balances, identical to Mother Nature's own set in Yggdrasil, which had, miraculously, stopped wobbling. The scale of Dreams was perfectly even, both yellow and black orbs fused into one, larger ball of silver, which rested dead on in the centre of the scales and writhed sleepily with slow currents of sand.

Tooth was hovering, peering at the scales in concern, her head tilting this way and that – sharp, birdlike movements that abruptly betrayed her hybrid nature, the sleek, vinelike armour she wore and the swords at her hips reminiscent of the wild queen she'd been in her youth. North had crossed his burly arms, his tattoos flexing beneath his heavy coat and a thick scowl drawing over his serious blue eyes. Mim, dressed in his slightly dusty white suit with scuffs of grey moondust all over it glanced everywhere but at the others, like it burned him to look at them for too long. Jack was biting his lip and fidgeting, sprawled over a sofa with Kozmotis stood beside him, Kozmotis' hand idle in his tight-knuckled grip as Jack traced the small, slicing scars on the translucent flesh and wondered at their origin.

“So...” said Tooth, sounding a little bewildered, “What does this mean?” She glanced instinctively at Manny, expecting him to fill in the gaps.

The small man shrugged, hassling his lower lip between his teeth. “I-I d-don't know, T-Toothiana,” he said, quietly.

Jack exploded into action, restlessness present in every inch of him as he paced, clutching his staff hard and clearly wishing he could set off a ferocious blizzard. His eyes looked wild, dangerous, something unhinged there that hadn't been part of the fun-loving, young sprite he'd arrived as. Now his entire demeanour was paradoxically chilled, icy and remote, even as churning meltwater bubbled beneath the surface, an avalanche on the brink of tipping. “What use is that?” he demanded. “What happened to them? Don't you know _anything?”_

Mim flinched and lowered his eyes. It wasn't really fair to Manny, since Jack knew all of his knowledge and would have been able to tell himself if Manny had really known anything about what was going on.

“I s-s-s-sup-pose the b-balance m-must h-have s-sorted its-self out,” Mim muttered, rushing his words and stumbling over most of them.

“You mean Sandy has died, yes?” North rumbled gravely, his saddened eyes still fixed on the balance. He spared Jack a sidelong look of private remonstration, and the volatile winter spirit settled down, the dark armour he wore making him stand out against the white of the couch as he threw himself upon it once more.

“That's one explanation,” said Tooth, tapping the silvery ball hesitantly. It remained firm and unmoving. “I hope it's not the only one.”

Kozmotis, still and silent as ever, remained stoic and apparently unbothered by the others' uneasiness, floating just slightly above the floor, his ragged, blood-stained cloak causing poppies to bloom at his heels. Silvery tears streaked down his grave, noble face, and he was looking at Jack with an unreadable expression as if the conversation had gone right over his head. It hadn't, of course, Kozmotis understood English perfectly, even if he couldn't speak it.

He spoke up, with a soft, liquid sentence in Lesser Constellar that only Jack understood perfectly. _“Should we return and see what has become of him?”_ Kozmotis was eager to leave the Moon for another reason, Jack knew, namely his daughter Seraphina, whom Jack had never met but had been warned of many times by other spirits. Mess with the seasons, and she would kill him.

“Kozmotis says we should go back to Earth,” he translated boredly, scuffing his bare feet against the white couches and leaving greyish marks. “I agree. I hate this place. It's so _dead.”_

On the moon, Jack was cut off from the source of his powers, winter and cold things. It felt like parts of him were missing, an added instability he did not need now he was dealing with the oppressive weight of three lives fighting for dominance in his straining, over-pressured mind.

“I-I-I c-can't s-see a r-reason f-for y-you to s-stay,” Manny added, not quite managing to rid the desperation of relief from his voice. The Man in the Moon wanted them gone, so he could return to the peace of solitude and isolation without the constant agony of four active, buzzing minds pushing against his incredible empathic powers, drilling directly into his skull and giving him a near constant migraine that had been throbbing in his temples since they'd begun nearing the Moon days ago.

“The ship is fixed,” said North with a shrug, looking to Tooth. “Is not good that this entire trip was waste of time, but we learnt things, yes?”

He eyed Manny, still not quite certain how to react to the man he'd respected's shady, uncovered past. Ever the optimist, North struggled to find a positive outlook on this trip. They now knew why Sandy had become sick, and a lot more besides, dirty, dangerous secrets of the past that weighed on them all like shackles. Oddly, Kozmotis, arguably the most directly affected by this past, seemed barely troubled at all. North wondered if it was because the ghost was dead, and removed enough from human feelings that the betrayals didn't register, or more likely because he was so used to being extorted and manipulated by the shadows that had become his life that such a petty thing ceased to matter to him anymore.

“I guess so,” said Tooth, her shoulders slumping despondently.

So their race to the Moon, their anxious days waiting at Jack's bedside for him to wake, the danger of Jack's mental state, really had been for nothing after all. The balance had righted itself, apparently, on its own, and now it was the absent Guardians' jobs to go and recover what they could from the ashes that were left behind. They had no idea what had been happening on Earth since their departure – no one could work the telescope but Manny, and he had been more occupied with stress and death-threats from Jack than observing the world below.

“ _Let's go!”_ Jack snapped suddenly, lurching to his feet again. “Please,” he added in a smaller voice, “I can't stand it here, I really can't. Can we go now?”

North and Tooth glanced at each other, and found no reason to protest, and Jack, sensing their agreement, seized a startled Kozmotis by the hand and ran out the door, tugging the surprised ghost after him, who quickly had to move his scythe to avoid slicing Jack.

Tooth blinked in surprise as the sound of Jack's footsteps receded, stunned by the sudden, abrupt rudeness. She knew that Jack felt nothing but contempt and disgust for Manny, as he'd made so abundantly clear whilst revealing what he'd learnt, but actually running the moment they said they would leave? Disturbed, Tooth wondered just how much the environment of the Moon was weighing on Jack's mind. She supposed Manny's memories would be clearer here, and with Jack's dislike of him she doubted that was something that he ever wanted. She felt a pang of pity and guilt once more.  _I'm so sorry Jack._

North sighed heavily. “I will go after him,” the Russian said, and then nodded at Manny, who smiled tentatively back.

Mim just looked very uncomfortable when she half-turned back to apologise, alone now, politeness ingrained. “N-No,” he said sadly, “L-Let h-him h-have h-his anger.” He seemed so old, so weary then, the weight of ages and responsibility bowing his shoulders. “He is young,” he mused, and her eyebrows raised in surprise as the stutter slipped completely from his voice. He had a surprisingly mellow voice, a tenor, she supposed. “He has time yet. And I am a better villain to his eyes, he needs someone to blame. I've done enough to justify it.”

He startled when he noticed her, as if he'd forgotten that she was there, and smiled nervously. “G-G-G-Go,” he urged softly. “G-Give w-what's l-left of S-Sandy m-my r-regards.” He hesitated. “I'm s-sorry.”

Tooth nodded in understanding and then placed her hand lightly on his shoulder. He flushed deep scarlet, averting his eyes. “For what it's worth,” Tooth said gently, tilting her head to follow his eyes, “I don't believe you're a bad person, really. I don't know what to think about all of this, but know you tried to steer us right when we were young and confused.”

“I d-did c-care f-for h-him,” Manny whispered. “I c-care f-for ll of y-you. I j-just _thought...”_ He made a soft, distressed sound and wiped his face with his handkerchief. “H-He w-was s-so _s-sad._ And incomp-plete. I-I w-was t-trying t-to h-help, and then- then it w-was t-too f-far t-to stop...”

“I don't agree with what you've done.” She paused. “I've spent so long with Se- with Mother Nature, and she always- well, she always hated to see him like that. I think I understand now, why.” She laughed. “And to think, it was only when he got sick that any of us realised he was hurting all these years. What friends we were...”

“Y-You d-did w-what y-you c-could,” said Mim, and met her eyes steadily. She smiled at him.

“I'd better go, else they'll leave without me. Goodbye, Tsar Lunar.”

“Toothiana.” He dipped his head. Awkwardly, Tooth left, feeling his eyes watching her go. It was as if a weight lifted from her shoulders once she had left the shell of the Moon Clipper, and she rolled her shoulders back and took off.

Tooth sped off towards the ship, her smile widening. They were finally going home, back to Earth, and whatever awaited them there.

She really hoped Baby Tooth had been taking care of tooth-collecting duty in her absence.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Cavity- Cassie  
> A dark!Jack, non slash story where Pitch gains Jack's trust before the events of the movie, making Jack dislike the Guardians, though he is still chosen and his center is still fun. - MissiriKoharehn (heavily summarised)  
> What if Seraphina had found ghost!Kozmotis before Jack and Jamie did? -bluefrosty27  
> "I'm off to Greenland in a submarine"/"Hope is a purple octopus"/"At least it's sunny in Antartica"/"I need a hitman and a time machine." -Sylphidine_Gallimaufry


	34. River Flow

 

Everything was gone.

The haven cut into warm, enclosing rock, a hidden Eden of verdant green, life where no life should exist, plants so old and ancient that they could never again be regrown, rare, extinct plants older than the Earth, silly little plants with nodding tulip heads of bright green, or great, thorny monstrosities of ponderous oak with egg-shaped leaves, giggling egglets running and hiding under the broad wings of dock leaves and birds piping their shrill calls, all at once melodic and beautiful, the old stone eggs carved with names, old, unspoken, ancient names, trees whittled into remarkable likenesses of furred faces that would never tilt up to the sun ever again, the last, older than time bastion of Pookan knowledge and _hope,_ wellspring of hope -

_gone._

He had cultivated this haven with the last whispers of Pookan techniques, old spells murmured in rhythmic, chanting languages that had graced no living ear for thousands of years, spells and technology faded from even the weary, cracking scrolls of his own memory. He'd preserved them in inks, pressed them between papers and hidden them deep away within the trunks of his living Warren, ten thousand and thirteen hollow trees carved with forgotten faces a young Pooka had chipped into the bark in the hopes they would continue living and growing, some form of them, even though he would never see them as they once were.

E. Aster Bunnymund, the last Pooka, clung miserably to a bare, rocky shore still superheated from the fire's withering heat, and watched the ash fall, soft, dry, hot, like paper kisses on his cheeks, on his soaked fur. His right shoulder ached where Death had grabbed him, and Bunny didn't need to look to know the fur and flesh had permanently died, exposing a whiteish area of cold, corpse flesh that neither spread nor hurt. The scar would remain forever, a testament to losing everything again a _second_ time, a spot of death and decay on the Guardian of Hope.

He almost wanted to laugh.

The dust had barely begun to settle when Bunny hauled himself out of the dye river, running greyish with ash, flashes of pink and ice blue splotching his fur regardless. He shook himself mechanically, coughed when it stirred up another plume of ash and smoke.

He hunched in on himself, his ears low, paws curled close to his chest. Hopelessness and despair crashed at him like Bunny was a boat adrift on a stormy sea, tossed this way and that with no control over his own fate, isolated after a tidal wave had swept away everything he loved.

The ash, the smoke, the emptiness and _barreness_ was too familiar, and Bunny gagged on the flood of ancient, old memories, memories of a play field turned battleground, blood soaking the soil so much that it oozed whenever he put weight on it, ragged heaps that had once been brothers and sisters, family. He knew those mutilated, stiff faces, soaked with blood and vomit and sweat, frozen in a permanent shriek of terror, white eyes rolled back, snapped bones and gruesome twists of raw flesh hanging like barbaric fruit from the trees. The Nightmare King had milked them for any last snippet of fear he could, until they, brave, wise, esteemed Pooka, devolved into rabid animals and ripped each other apart. All Pitch Black had had to do was say a few words, stand back, and watch their own fears burn them up.

_...And the Grim Reaper taunted Mother Nature, until fires sprang from her fingertips, and all of the surviving Pookan knowledge and the last of the stars, were swept away under the howling flames of her fearful wrath..._

Bunnymund, always the survivor, Bunnymund, always the one to find the _remains,_ keened.

Another friend to bury, shove the dusty face down into the darkness of that old festering place inside himself and spark up the hope that one day it would be worth it, keep _hoping_ that somewhere there was light in the universe to defeat the darkness.

Bunny's grip on his core was slipping. Not for the first time, he felt a gentle pulse from somewhere deep inside himself, something echoing like a long, dark tunnel hidden in the depths of his core, a recognition of his feelings as if they were reflected onto another through a long mirror.

Sandy had been the light, the shield, gently glowing and always tormented for so long, bearing the burden of holding back the tide of darkness alone. He'd taken the mantle upon himself, spread wide arms of golden glittering dreams and smiled the benevolent smile that always looked raw wishing star – _never again they were long gone –_ and protected, tender, the hearts of his fellow Guardians, of every child and adult in the world.

And now he was _gone,_ one of Bunny's oldest friends. He was _gone,_ and Bunny knew as sure as the death of all his race that it was forever.

There was the scuff of feet behind him, and then Mother Nature asked softly, almost awkwardly, “Bunnymund?”

Bunny whirled around with a snarl, immediately throwing two boomerangs at her and grabbing in his bandolier for a few explosive eggs. It was empty, and he growled in frustration, lambent green eyes incandescent with fury.

Expressionless, Mother Nature caught the two boomerangs in a network of roots exploding from her feet, raising an eyebrow when the sharpened edges stuck deep into the wood, vibrating. She looked around, at the blasted Warren, taking the devastation. Her lips pulled down into a grimace.

“I apologise for... losing my temper.” The apology sounded stiff, ill-used, and had Bunny been in a right frame of mind he might have appreciated how rare it was that _Mother Nature_ apologised to anyone. The younger spirit was brash, proud, haughty, and it was a sign of her rare, great respect to the last Pooka, who had shaped the earth before she had even stepped upon its soil.

“You _apologise!”_ Bunny roared, clenching his fists and half-starting towards her, paws balled into fists. It wasn't enough. Saying _sorry_ like all she had done was break a few plates-! “You _destroyed my entire Warren!”_

Mother Nature pinned him with a look, timeless and whirling with the verdigris spring of new life, cold and almost slightly pitying, evidently displeased Bunny hadn't taken the apology and moved on. She closed her eyes, tilted her head up to the sky and spread her arms. There was a response, a twitch, a pull from the ground that Bunny could feel tugging in his chest – he knew this land surer than he knew himself, had been the father of the earth in all the ways Seraphina had grown to mother it.

Her power unfurled like wings, great, suffocating wings that choked Bunny, driving him to his hands and knees, gasping for breath as his eyes rolled back into his head. He was connected to this land, knew its heartbeat and the thrum of life and he could nurture that life, drive a spark into an inferno, but he wasn't _Life,_ he couldn't strike sparks from nothing, grow life and energy from nothing but ash and will.

He jerked and twitched in the ash as Mother Nature created Life from Death, tiny green stems shooting out of ashy layers, bright green buds poking shy heads from underneath withered grey leaves. A careful wind whipped up, blowing the ash from their shy, tender new leaves like a soft kiss. Something like a soft smile tilted the cruelty in her face, and all of a sudden Bunny could see why they called her _mother,_ though she was the cruellest and harshest mistress. Spiky new heads bobbed the ground, and he opened his mouth, wordless, perhaps to thank her, feeling the restarted, regenerated heart of the Warren behind his own, but Seraphina opened her eyes, looked down at him and raised her noble chin, exposing the long, flawless column of her throat, the glow of her eyes like two jade suns.

Her gaze, terrible, earth shattering, never wavered, as around them the soil split apart and out lurched saplings, warping and growing at incredible speeds, aged and weathered in a blink of an eye oak joints bringing down eager yew saplings, conifers shooting towards the sky, bell-flowered plants and puffing colour plants Bunny used to dye his eggs spreading from the hems of her dress, snakes of magic and power tracing shapes down her dark brown skin, bright and glowing in contrast as her eyes shone, alight with the power of lifegiving magic.

It was too much.

He wanted to shout, tell her to stop before he ruptured apart in the eye of this incredible storm, but Mother Nature was as ruthless as she was determined, and she brushed his nonverbal plea aside like so much spare rough wind.

Mother Nature sighed, and the Earth rushed out of her parted lips, streams bubbling to dampen the roots of the new plants, new flowers and vibrancy and colour bursting from every droplet when it reached the earth. She tilted back her head, let her unbound hair ripple, whip up like a thundercloud, and Bunny watched, wide-eyed in wonder and _hope_ as all around him thousands of year unfurled in a blink of an eye, and for the first time he beheld the raw, unbridled power of Life, of Mother Nature, of what Seraphina Pitchiner had become, and even as he wept in despair as he looked upon her beautiful, ethereal face, his soul inflamed with light and life and laughter and thoughts of death and darkness were simply unimportant, banished, as he basked in the glow of her powers.

The shine of her eyes and the glowing web of the vines covering her flesh dimmed, and then brightened, as animals began to emerge, birds winging from the tangles of her floating, inky hair, piping high calls as they fluttered to new perches, insects tumbling from her lips, snakes curling like jewelled ropes down her arms, curious snouts of nimble foxes chasing fluffy rabbits and quick hares from the train of her dress, mice squeaking and running over her browned feet, toes digging into the soil as all manner of creatures emerged from her body, breath, power, children leaving the protective embrace of their mother.

She lowered her arms and sighed once more, bowing her head of rippling hair with an aura of tiredness. Scarred arms crossed over her stomach as she swayed, like a tree in the breeze, undoubtedly firm but yielding the caress of the wind. Standing like that, she struck a sudden sense of intense, deep loneliness, a powerful witch of storms alone in the heart of the natural fury she invoked to protect her fears, her flinching heart.

Bunny was gaping, struck dumb by her actions – in just under five minutes, she had razed his entire Warren to the ground, but in the same time, had regrown a thriving haven of life. There were no egglets, or the great stone egg guardians, and she hadn't _quite_ got the flowers that sprayed colours over his little eggs and the ones that stamped patterns onto their shells right, but that was specialist to Bunny's job, and he could regrow them fairly easily himself now she had provided the outlines. There were quite a few other plants and animals she had missed too, ones foreign to her Earth, and Bunny supposed he would have to show her the representations in order to have them grown.

He had not expected this of her, knew the immense amount of power it would have taken, life energy poured from her own body, and a pang of sympathy hit him as he watched her, standing oddly shy in the aftermath of what she had wrought. Bunny by nature was a Guardian of _children,_ and he might have been out of touch but he still recognised that pose, like a little girl hunched for punishment, even though she had done her best to right her wrong.

His mouth opened and closed once, twice, and then he managed to say gruffly, “I'm still angry.” His tone was slightly softer, though, the hard edge of anger lost, and Seraphina looked at him underneath the tangles of her dark hair, a slight, relieved smile on her lips.

Bunny felt the warmth of hope light up in his chest again at the sight, had the insane desire to laugh. Mother Nature wasn't supposed to be vulnerable, tempestuous, yes, mercurial, practically in the job description, but Bunny had never imagined that she felt anything more than disdain for anyone else. The realisation that perhaps Seraphina respected him, albeit in a distant, still-going-to-ignore-you-and-burn-down-your-home way, was confusing. Bunny rubbed his head and thought about Tooth, a wild queen herself, who had spoken of Seraphina to him before, relating a past connection shattered when she had become a Guardian.

Bunny sighed, and revised his opinion of Seraphina, from an obsessive, selfish, cold and heartless woman to an obsessive, selfish, cold woman who, despite her best attempts, still had a heart.

 _I'm getting too deep,_ he thought wryly, and said, “D'ya know what happened while we were out?”

“Something,” she responded cryptically. “I felt a life end, yet, there was life where there should be none.”

“What the bloody hell does that mean?”

Mother Nature pursed her lips, annoyed. “I felt Sanderson die, but you know as well as I do that _something_ came out of that cave and it wasn't some mindless creature.”

A shiver prickled up Bunny's spine. Yes, he remembered. Nothing more than a jagged smile, stretching too wide out of a nimbus of silver, the impression of fist-sized glowing eyes, alight with a hysterical, mad glee and the tidal whisper of secrets trapped between the sands.

“D'ya think it was – the Fearlings?” He shook his head, immediately discounting it. “Nah, you didn't have a nightmare, did ya? An'- I don't think they could control dreamsand...”

“Some sort of fusion?” Seraphina asked, in quiet horror, “How by the stars is that even _possible?_ Does it even have a consciousness or is it just some – tangled mess of shadow sand?”

“Seemed like it did to me.” Bunny shuddered, remembering high, shrill laughter, psychotic exhilaration as he'd howled for mercy, a wanton sort of curiosity driving the peaks of his terror higher and higher. “It watched.”

“I had that sensation too.” The words were clipped, but Seraphina looked deeply uncomfortable. Bunny didn't pry.

Suddenly, Seraphina's head snapped up, as some invisible alarm had rung far away, alerting her attention. She frowned. “Three spirits just landed on Earth, and a freak blizzard has exploded around their general land site. I presume you have an explanation as to what one of my seasonal spirits was doing _away_ from the source of his energy?” Her tone was dark and cold, and her hair began to ripple ominously, billowing in an approaching thunderstorm.

Bunny, unruffled, said simply, “They went to the Moon to find a way to cure Sandy. I was supposed to be keeping him alive in their absence.”

“Well,” said Seraphina. “There were...extenuating circumstances. I should leave.” Her discomfort was deepening, and she fidgeted slightly, a movement so uncharacteristic that Bunny narrowed his eyes in suspicion.

“They'll probably come straight here,” he said slowly, and knew he had hit the source of it all when she looked away.

“As I said, it's probably best that I am gone before they arrive.”

“Who'd you piss off?” Bunny asked flatly, and Mother Nature bristled, hands clenching into fists and the sky darkening almost immediately. The wind picked up with a low, whining howl, and it started raining lightly, more irritating than threatening. “Nature. You _just_ burnt down my Warren. Hold it.”

“My personal life is none of your concern, _rabbit,_ ” she snapped, two high spots of colour appearing on her cheeks at his reminder. The swirling clouds overhead dispersed a little, not too obviously.

He really was finding out a lot about Mother Nature today. “You were friends with Tooth once, weren't ya?” he asked, not fooled.

She gritted her teeth. “I would hardly have called us _friends._ My powers meant she didn't die, and she was properly respectful of me in return. Nothing more, nothing less.”

It was clear Bunny had hit a sore spot, and since he didn't fancy getting roasted a second time, he limited his reactions to a disbelieving ear-twitch and a sniff.

The pink deepened on her face, and she drew herself up, about to rage, but before she could there was a loud knock that resonated throughout the Warren; it was the other Guardians, requesting entry. Bunny gave her his best shit-eating grin, felt himself positively channelling Jack Frost by the look on her face. Suddenly, he understood why the icy idiot claimed it was so 'fun' to annoy Bunny.

Bunny tapped his foot, and a tunnel opened up in a wall, a cacophony of armoured figures tumbling through with a tremendous crash. Out of the corner of his eye, Bunny saw Seraphina's face fall into a cold, expressionless mask, hands behind her back in a manner that was suddenly reminiscent of Pitch, all the while looking like she wished she could melt into the tree behind her.

The Guardians stood up, brushing themselves off. North bellowed a booming laugh of greeting, and Tooth shot forwards to clasp her arms around her neck, wings fluttering gladly. “Bunny, old friend!” North shouted, drowned out by Tooth's higher, “Bunny!”

“Hey, Tooth,” said Bunny uncomfortably, and she let him free, smoothing down her crest in embarrassment.

“Bunny,” said Jack, and Bunny frowned. Something was up with the Frostbite – his eyes were dark and serious, and his frost designs over his armour were less like the playful frost ferns and more dangerous icicles, like he'd run into a shot of nightmare sand. At his side stood a familiar ghost, his eyes as haunted as Jack's, but a respectful nod of the head for Bunny, and a soft, _“Vellethzarehk,”_ that Bunny swiftly returned.

The temperature dropped, and Bunny saw Tooth go rigid when she observed Seraphina, who regarded her coldly with a faint hint of a curl to her lip.

“Mother Nature,” Tooth said icily, and Bunny almost winced. Tooth's glare was sharp enough to bore holes.

“Fairy Queen,” Seraphina responded, and if Tooth was icy, Seraphina was positively _glacial,_ the thinly veiled contempt in her eyes summarily dismissing them all. “Guardians.” She sneered the word.

Bunny shot North a look, who simply shrugged. They stood aside as the two women glared at each other, the awkwardness and angry undertone deepening. North and Bunny had a quick but silent war on who was going to speak first that was ultimately rendered useless by Jack stepping forward.

“It's good that you are here, _sserrafinaa-oksh-pyitchshiner,”_ he said, with such a flawless accent that Bunny blinked in surprise and Seraphina jerked as if she had been shot, _“Vellethzarehk._ I have someone you should meet.”

Seraphina's eyes passed right over the ghost at his side as if he were invisible to her, and her frown deepened slightly in confusion. “Moon child? Jack Frost? How do you know that tongue?”

“Long story,” said Jack, with a bitter twist to his lip, “Cut short, I watched all of the Man in the Moon's memories since he was born to present day, and it happened to trigger my past life as Nightlight, guardian of light. I know a lot more than I did before, now. Including your past.”

Seraphina stepped back. For an instant, her gaze flicked to Tooth, something half-formed there, perhaps a request to stand with her against the five other spirits. It lasted only a second before her attention refocused on Jack, the split of the past gaping wide once more.

“Explain yourself,” she demanded.

In answer, Jack took hold of Kozmotis' hand, pulling the silent, expressionless ghost forward a few steps. “You can't see him yet, can you? Kozmotis Pitchiner is here.”

Seraphina stiffened. “Is this-”

“It's not a joke,” said Jack, tilting his head, something in his presence that stilled any questions. “He stands beside me. Stop seeing through your trees and look with your eyes, _sserrafinaa.”_

Mother Nature blinked, and then appeared to make an effort to hold back the lifemagic that amplified her senses, allowing her to pick up something that was very much not alive, but not dead. Her eyes widened and she backed away, face paling, until she hit the tree trunk, hands digging into the bark.

“ _Serrafinaa,”_ murmured Kozmotis, dropping Jack's hand and taking a hesitant step forward.

“Get back, you monster! _Ehkthakkanmesperre!” You are not my father._ She was shaking slightly, in rage, and thunder boomed overhead, but nothing more happened than a light rainfall. She was too exhausted from restoring Bunny's Warren, and bitterly regretted her power expenditure now.

He flinched like he had been struck, lowering his eyes in penitence. _“Mesmeiless,”_ Kozmotis said softly. _My daughter._ _“I'm sorry.”_

“I don't-” She glanced wildly at the other Guardians and then fell silent, her eyes returning thirstily to the ghost, perfect down to the last detail. She knew that armour, that tall scythe, that long face and the shape of his nose and the downturn of his lips and the broadness of his shoulders. She knew him and it was as if a blurry filter had been stripped away, the image returned to the original.

In her shame, Seraphina felt tears prick her eyes, and when she swallowed them back, a lump in her throat.

“How did this occur?” she demanded, looking now to Tooth with something like betrayal in the twist of her lips. _You knew, and you didn't tell me? You kept_ this _a secret?_

Tooth raised her chin, summarising the events that led them to the Moon and what occurred there in a crisp, clipped manner. Seraphina was silent throughout, gaze torn between her _father,_ Kozmotis, standing beside Jack, and the teller of the tale. Once Tooth concluded her retelling, adding that they now knew there was no cure for Sandy, and they wanted to know what had happened to cause the balances to stabilise, Seraphina felt a drop in her chest.

 _One old soul for another,_ she thought wildly. “Dream rose,” she muttered, distracted. “I assume the cores fused again, it's the only explanation that makes sense. They're a whole spirit instead of two,” she added for Bunny's sake, who still seemed slightly bemused.

“We should go after him.” North, troubled and his accent graver than ever.

“What's left of him,” Bunny added gloomily, unable to stop remembering that gleeful little giggle. Sandy had always been a ...peculiar guy, especially after he'd taken that vow of silence (which was, according to Tooth's story, actually because Manny had lost him the ability when he'd removed essential pieces of Sandy's core) but he'd never got as far as downright psychosis. Pitch, on the other hand...

There was no way that some sort of messed-up fusion between them would ever end up well.

“It is sorted,” said North, clapping his hands together, “Bunny, Tooth and I will find this new spirit, da? And meanwhile Kozmotis and Mother Nature can have talk.”

“What about me?” Jack asked, leaning on his staff idly. He looked amused.

“Stay here,” said Bunny immediately. “I don't want my Warren burnt down again.”

North and Tooth shared a private look in silent, guilty relief. The howling blizzard that an unstable Jack reconnecting with his powers had caused was still fresh in their minds, and a volatile, unpredictable team mate was the last thing they needed when they were going after a potentially lethal new spirit.

“What happened to your Warren?” Tooth dared to ask. “It looks as beautiful as ever to me.”

Seraphina looked at her feet, Bunny sent her a sidelong look and said, “I'll tell you on the way.”

With a brief backward glance at the trio of awkward stares, North and Tooth took the cue and followed Bunny out of the Warren, using one of his tunnels, the sound of their voices fading away as they went.

Left in silence, ghost and Mother Nature stared at each other blankly, unable to talk. Jack leaned against his staff, a silent observer. He was worried about Kozmotis, but knew not to interfere. It was a family matter, and Kozmotis was a private man – he was bad enough looking in on this reunion.

“ _All this time, the Tsarina Lunanoff's magic kept you live within the shadows?”_ Seraphina asked him quietly, and the ghost nodded.

“ _Yes. I was not always...aware, but I was present.”_ He fidgeted slightly, the guilt of his mind woven so closely into the shadows they had been one person, _Pitch Black,_ overwhelming like a bitter pill that caught in his throat. He furtively wished he could hold onto Jack, Jack who had soothed every confusion and pain since Kozmotis had found himself alone and confused, adrift in this new world.

“ _And yet, all this years and you gave not a single sign,”_ said Seraphina flatly. _“You_ left _me, Father.”_

“ _I -”_ Words failed him, and he bowed his head, accepting her judgement. Yes, he had left, yes, he had yielded, eventually, to the siren call of shadows singing through his blood, yes, he had let his noble cause be corrupted for his own desire for oblivion. He had no defence, no excuse against his daughter's wrath. He _had_ failed her. His entire mission was one catastrophic failure that had cost her far more than her mother, her entire world, her safety, her childhood, and thousands of other children, their lives.

The choking burden of this guilt bowed his shoulders, and he felt his tears only flow forever faster, always regretting, always remembering those who had fallen long ago in a pointless war to stop a monster, a war that had claimed thousands of galaxies' worth of lives.

His refusal to speak suddenly seemed to light up her anger, and before he knew it she was screaming, calling him a monster, a vile beast that should have died in the shadows it served, and what use was he, crawling back, clinging to the last vestiges of life, shattered fragments of the man he had once been, pushing them together like a crying child with a hacked up board of trampled puzzle pieces, their original picture long worn away, only the rough edges to guide their placements.

“ _I would have rather been born to nothing at all! As a sire you are useless! You left your child, you left your wife, you believed us dead and would not search, I tried, for so long I tried to find you but you_ never came for me, _you never fought your way out- if you had loved me...”_ She broke off, and there were tears streaming down her earth-beaten cheeks, long-fingered hands, soil trapped beneath poisonous green nails, covering her face.

“ _Mesmeiless,”_ Kozmotis whispered. _“Do not...do not doubt my love for you. Everything I've done, I did it for you.”_ He looked down at his hands, scarred and pale and translucent, and sighed, the movement barely perceptible beneath the armour. _“Not that...not that it did any good for you, in the end.”_

“ _How can I not doubt it,_ father?” she sneered, striking like a snake, _“Should I have held it firm in my heart when you sought to replace me, when you forgot me, your own daughter, when you destroyed everything and anything you could? When you tried to kill_ me?”

Kozmotis flinched, her words stirring up the heavy past. Flashbacks cut across his vision, and he nearly gagged. More of Sandy, that bright, searing light, a girl shrouded in green. Pitch's vision was hazy, shadow-shrouded and thirsty. She'd been frightened, that was how he had tracked the little star, he knew, the pilot himself had known no fear but instead a longing for death and darkness.

“That wasn't him!” Jack broke in, having heard enough, gripping his staff so hard his knuckles turned white.

Frowning, Seraphina turned her thunderous wrath upon him, and a whiplash of vines cracked through the air, Seraphina's eyes murderous with rage and pain and loss, old hurts never healed, her volatile powers reacting to her mood. Jack's eyes widened, and even with the power of the wind he was still only Nature's child. He was frozen in place as the green spear shot towards him, his Mother standing at the other end with a light to kill in her eyes, like flecks of emerald, cold, hard, precious.

In an instant, a silver scythe sliced through the spear, and Kozmotis had appeared in front of him, back to him in a low, ready crouch Jack recognised from fighting Pitch Black, his scythe unsheathed, ready to block another attack. His eyes were cold and hard, shining just as readily as his daughter.

The Pitchiners faced off for a moment, before Seraphina's face twisted in hurt and she attacked again, summoning vines like whips. Jack staggered back lest he get caught in them and had a sudden, bizarre flashback, Pitch and Sandy on the rooftop, dark scythe and golden whips, superimposed over Kozmotis with his silvery weapon, Seraphina with her lashing vines, both two people that should never have had to fight.

_This shouldn't be happening, this isn't how it's supposed to go, it's happening again, just like before they were never supposed to fight-_

Kozmotis was guarding Jack, slicing through Mother Nature's vine-whips before they could hit the winter spirit. Seraphina was taking it as fighting back, and screaming like she was possessed she threw everything, all her exhausted, run low powers into the fight, until at last she could fight no more and collapsed on her knees, breathing heavily and head bowed. She was sobbing, breath hitching and cheeks flushed, rocking back and forth with low, pained sounds.

“ _Why didn't you fight?”_ she gasped, turning a tear-streaked face up to the ghost of her dead father.

Kozmotis smiled sadly. _“I tried. For so long, I tried.”_

“ _It wasn't enough, you didn't try hard enough.”_ She was tired now, her words lacking the previous bite, a statement more than an accusation.

“ _I know,”_ he replied softly. _“I was weak, and you paid the price.”_

Jack tried to protest, and this time, Seraphina heard him, looking at him with a weary blankness that suggested she didn't quite recognise him, didn't care to bother. “It wasn't his fault!” he shouted, slipped back into Constellar and tried not to think about how much he sounded like a whiny child. _“You can't blame him for this. It was out of his control! He tried so_ fucking _hard – I was there, I saw it. It destroyed him inside, losing you. He had no choice, but he fought. I watched him fight till the end. He was a hero, a General, everyone depended on him.”_ He gestured to Kozmotis, who avoided his eyes. _“But he was_ just a man, _Sserrafinaa.”_

“ _And what is one man against the legions of fear?”_ Seraphina mused quietly. She stared at her father, and cautiously, he approached, and crouched beside her as best as he could, though he still floated apart from her earth and when she reached out, perhaps to touch his shoulder, her hand went straight through him. Her face fell, and she muttered a soft, bitter laughter.

“ _I love you,”_ Kozmotis told her. _“I never stopped loving you.”_

“ _I thought I hated you for a long time,”_ Seraphina met his eyes, unflinching as Kozmotis shuttered down, expecting another rebuttal. _“I wanted to hate you. But I never, I never truly could. You're my_ daddy.”

Kozmotis choked, and his shoulders shook. His crying was almost soundless, the ghostly tears mingling with the vibrance of Seraphina's. Jack watched, thought about the Fearlings screaming _“Daddy!”_ from behind a locked door and felt his heart lodge in his throat.

“ _I need time,”_ she said, _“I can't-”_

“ _It's a lot,”_ he said, not pressuring, but then, with a quiet hope that hurt to be heard, _“My daughter...”_

“ _Father.”_ She smiled, soft and rosy like the breaking of dawn, and the joy and hope, the love in Kozmotis' eyes in return caused such as sudden pang of envy in Jack's heart that he had to look away. They were father and daughter reuniting, it was good that he looked at her as if his world rose and set around the smile on her face, like there was no room in his heart for anything but her.

 _Not even you,_ some traitorous voice whispered inside him, and Jack stamped on the poisonous curl and directed his attention instead to the dye river, still reflecting fiery reds. _I don't matter,_ he told himself, _She's his daughter. Stop being so selfish._

He wished for his hoodie then, to pull the hood over his head. Instead, he wandered down to the bank of the dye river, stared into the glittering depths and tried to ignore Kozmotis and Seraphina's soft voices behind him. A curious bee landed on his shoulder, instantly froze, and died. Jack brushed it off with a sigh.

He poked his staff into the water of the river, wondering if he could freeze it over. Whatever latent magic there was in the Warren resisted him, however, and the river was completely unchanged by his interference. He sighed, lifted his staff away and wondered when the other Guardians would be coming back.

Unseen, at the point where Jack's staff had touched the water, the river turned bright, beaten silver, the exact shade of Kozmotis Pitchiner's eyes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OKAY, so this is about the oneshot again. I've done the draw using a randomiser, here were the entries;
> 
> Cavity- Cassie  
> A dark!Jack, non slash story where Pitch gains Jack's trust before the events of the movie, making Jack dislike the Guardians, though he is still chosen and his center is still fun. - MissiriKoharehn (heavily summarised)  
> What if Seraphina had found ghost!Kozmotis before Jack and Jamie did? -bluefrosty27  
> "I'm off to Greenland in a submarine"/"Hope is a purple octopus"/"At least it's sunny in Antartica"/"I need a hitman and a time machine." -Sylphidine_Gallimaufry  
> Blacksand/Cold Gold – Riley  
> Cold Gold, Jack confesses to Sandy – 8ot
> 
> And the winner was - Cassie! So I'm going to do a completely open oneshot with the only stipulation being a Cavity pairing. *grins and cracks knuckles* Thanks to all those who did enter, and I might end up doing your oneshot at a later date, but I will TRY and do them also, because you took the time to enter. When I say "at a later date", I mean, add them to my enormous list of "things I need to write". It's the least I can do to thank you all.


	35. Meeting Dream

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I edited a lot of this, it's substantially less terrifying than it was when I first drafted it. Nonetheless, there is blood-tasting, and death.

The night was cool, a nip of cold-fresh-frost turning the swaying-living-breathing grass yellowed, a breath of wind hissing a thousand soft whispers-in-darktime to the flaming-bodies-of-stars far above. The wind skirted the gravel of a winding road, lone like a black, frozen forever and gilded with the deceptive gleam of black ice. The black river wound up, towards the gargoyle hunched shape of a tinder block rectangle, gloomy grey walls, windows like blank faces and too-well tended gardens of miserable flowers grown in boxes and watered with pesticides. The air hung heavy and gravid with the valley stench of silt and decay; there were coffins in the back garden rotting away under mulch and soil.

To the sensitive silver eyes of a young spirit, it was a bleak and dull place, a cell for decaying humans to rot away their last days inside their fleshbags before they went into the sleep that had no dreams at all. Dream was drawn to it, perhaps some dusty memory of longing for a death, of becoming that putrid creature, ancient and lurking and stinking, an old worn down mind trapped inside a body that had run out of life and vigour a long time ago. There was no hell comparable to being trapped inside a corpse as it slowly began to decompose around the spirit.

The spirit looped through a window left ajar as a ribbon of silver, the brightly lit fires of dreaming minds a beacon to them. They reformed their semblance of a human form, feeling it settle around their metaphorical shoulders like a warm cloak of safe-familiar-comfort. Small, bare feet left imprints of shining silver imprints as Dream padded down the clean white hallways, breathing in and sensing disinfectant-clean-medical-white-smells.

They squeezed themselves through a keyhole and stopped beside the dimly-dreaming-mind of an elderly human male. The older the minds, the less fresh their dreams tasted, Dream had learnt, but they were still curious enough that they floated over to them and straddled their chest anyway, blowing sand against papery, wrinkled eyelids.

They stirred at the human's dreams, poking curious fingers into the faded old things and turning them bright and vibrant again. The human began to shake and sweat underneath Dream, overcome by an intensity and vivacity he hadn't felt since he was a child, when everything was new and exciting. The wrinkles of his old forehead creased into a frown, and a slur of German rushed from his lips, confused and incredible. His blood-pump-heart began to jump faster in his shrunken chest. Dream grinned-happy-pleased- _hungry_ , leaning over him and parting their gash-in-face-smile-and-teeth-mouth as they drew-sucked-breathed in, spurred by a flesh-memory of feeding-with-the-mouth.

The elderly-human-male was dreaming a scene from his memory-past-thoughts, wine-on-his-tongue-flower-in-his-teeth-woman-in-his-arms-precious-loved-beautiful, music-playing-fast-happy-good-fire-strong-in-his-blood-drunkenness, human-name-shape-on-lips- _maude-_ wife-wedding-bells. Silver grains of dreams-given-form-sand sparkled, glittering-like-tears-and-memory beneath the hollows of his eyes. Dream pushed for more, only the edges of their hunger sated, but suddenly the human-male's heart gave a terrific lurch and his eyes shot open. There was half a second where he hung, ecstatic. Old lips stretched into a gap-toothed smile at Dream and a rasped, broken voice whispered, _“Maude?”._ Dream tilted their head and blinked at the male, but before they could make it sleep again so they could continue feeding, the human collapsed back on the bed and his mind went numb.

Dream, confused, patted one soft hand on the human-male's cheek. When the human did not respond, they pushed a little harder. Nothing.

Dream discovered quickly that they _hated_ being ignored, and what was worse, they were still hungry. They whined quietly, pawed at the human in aggravation. Their sharp claws caught on the human's bony shoulder, and the fleshbag split like an overripe fruit, a thick red liquid seeped out. Dream smeared their finger in it in bemusement, then licked the finger clean. It tasted copper-hot-red-life, with the thrum of _death-this-sustained-spirit-mind-liquid_ through it, so much more than a piece of the body but part of the spirit, used for centuries in all manner of rituals and incantations until it had taken a spirituality of it's own. The taste was vile, and Dream spat, trying to wipe the taste from their mouth. They'd have to find a different way to sate their hunger. 

 

* * *

 

The Guardians appeared on a low hill overlooking a what appeared to be a retirement home, as evidenced by a sign planted cheerily outside the well-tended gardens, blooming with a bright variety of flowers. The home itself was a built of grey stone, simple enough, made homely and warm by regular windows with patterned curtains. The home was nestled in the sweeping V of a valley, a solitary road winding its way up to it, idyllic and isolated.

The bright dreamtrails of silver sand weaving through the shadows were a sure sign that they had come to the right place, even if the ominous prickle of being in the presence of another powerful spirit, that unidentifiable sense of _other,_ hadn't confirmed it. Nonetheless, North glanced at Bunny, who nodded grimly.

It was a dark sight, to see the familiar dreamsand corrupted and altered by whatever the Fearlings had done to Sandy. It was difficult to accept that this was how he was _supposed_ to be, nightmares merged with dreams. Struggling to remember Sandy before he'd taken his vow of silence – before he'd been shattered by Mim, North corrected himself – North frowned at his own memory, vague and indistinct. He remembered little except that Sandy had had a voice like bell-chimes and soothing ocean waves, and North had been mildly upset that he wouldn't have a chance to hear it again.

He sighed gustily. They'd been had, tricked, deceived all these years. Not once had North wondered if Sandy had lied to them, not once had he particularly concerned himself with the other Guardian's affairs, assuming that if Sandy had such an issue, he'd ask North directly.

_Look at how well that turned out._

Bunny was unusually fidgety as they neared the home, and though there was no hint of cowardice in him, North knew his fellow Guardian far too well for that, North also could tell that his encounter with the new spirit had severely shaken him. The gruff Pooka had related the rough details as they'd travelled through one of his tunnels – to North's disgruntlement – Mother Nature had burnt down his Warren, Sandy had disappeared into the cave where Pitch's body had been stored, and obviously the fire had released the fearlings when it burnt the body, there was no other way they could have broken free after all. The fearlings had possessed Sandy, and some bizarre fusion with apparently equal powers over both dreams and nightmares had attacked Mother Nature and Bunny when it had broken free.

North had a good idea of what both losing his Warren and having a specifically catered nightmare had probably reminded Bunny of far too vividly. He felt a pang of sympathy for his grumpy friend, but knew better than to show it, instead pretending he hadn't seen the cracks in Bunny's impressive mental fortifications.

His hands twitched towards his swords when they stopped outside the home, knowing that the other spirit would be aware of their presence just as they were of his- theirs? Who knew, being technically nonexistent forces of energy imprisoned in physical forms was an eclectic existence. Standing shoulder to shoulder, they scanned the darkened windows for a twitch of movement.

It was Tooth who spotted it first, her hushed gasp of amazement and shaking pointed finger who pointed it out to the others. She looked spellbound, dropping to her feet as her wings completely stopped midair, mouth falling open. North followed her gaze and felt the breath leave him in a surprised rush, eyes widening even as his core of Wonder held him helpless. North had been a bandit once, the king of bandits, and had stolen half the continent's riches, had seen all the glories of men and more, had seen things that had struck him right down to that wide-eyed child deep inside, but never, in his entire life, had he seen anything more _wondrous_ than the sight that met his eyes then.

He felt his heart drop into his throat and his breath stop as everything faded into the background, and at once North underwent a spiritual realisation, an affirmation of purpose, that his entire life had led to this point, this heavenly creature. Everything he had seen, everything he had done was all in preparation for this one, final moment, just so it could all fall so dramatically short, and North could only guess why he had ever thought gold coins or beautiful treasures worthy of wonder when this impossible, glorious creature existed, beyond any point of comparison.

Tears pricked his eyes in thankfulness, that he had been judged worthy of such a gift, to be witness to such a vision of perfection.

It was a child, sitting on a windowsill, though unlike any human child he had ever seen – and how dare he ever compare something as low and base as _humanity_ to this incomparable, effulgent creature, radiance and starlight comprised into one flawless form? The child, supernaturally lovely, was sexless, ageless, with a soft, beautific smile and eyes that sparkled like stars torn straight from the night sky.

“Hello,” the child giggled, kicking their feet and tilting their head. They gave the Guardians a brilliant, mischievous grin, and Tooth made a quiet sound of worshipful despair at the sight of the child's teeth, each perfect, though, really, how could he expect anything less? “Are you here for me?” They batted their eyelashes.

“You're beautiful,” whispered Tooth rapturously, and the child beamed, a small hand coming up to cover its lips as it giggled again. Tooth made a birdlike trill of disappointment.

“I _am_ your dreams,” the child remonstrated playfully, and Tooth's wingtips quivered in shame at the thought of possibly disappointing the ethereal creature.

“Alright, Dream, whatever, come down from there and no funny business,” Bunny called, just enough growl in his voice to make it a potential threat.

Dream pouted, and the two human Guardians' blood was stirred with anger and the furious need to defend.

“ _Bunny!”_ Tooth looked horrified. “Don't speak so harshly to the little sweetie. I'm sorry dear, he can be so coarse sometimes,” she apologised to Dream, who giggled graciously and nodded.

Emboldened by the shine of the child's approval, Tooth buzzed into a hover, clearly intending to fly to Dream. Bunny seized her foot, yanking her back to the ground, his face contorting into a snarl.

“Have you lost your bloody mind? That's half Pitch!” he shouted. “Look at it! It's _covered in blood and grinning like a maniac!”_

Bunny's insult was tantamount to declaring war, and North ripped his swords from their sheath, fire in his eyes and brows pulling into a dark glare. Bunny stepped back, startled, as North advanced on him, a dangerous need to kill throbbing through his veins, although something in his heart wept at having to tear his eyes from Dream. _“Apologise,”_ he growled, and Bunny threw up his paws in surrender, ears flattening against his skull.

“What's wrong with you two?” he demanded. “It's like it has you...” He paused, eyes widening as a realisation came to him. “You're _enchanted!_ Whatever it's doing to you – fight it! North!” He ducked a swing from an enraged North.

North felt strong, powerful, the thrill of the fight thrumming through his veins. He'd dreamt of this, solitary at the Pole, he'd lived this, once, as a bandit, the king of all bandits. Bunny wasn't fighting back, and North gritted his teeth. The Pooka was cowardly! He'd pay for the insult.

“Ooh!” cried the beautiful child, rapturous and giggling, “Make him _bleed!”_

"Of course, ангел мой,” murmured North, not taking his eyes off his opponent.

He attacked in a flurry of movement, bold, going straight for the kill. Bunny cursed, scrambling away, something pained and confused in his bright green eyes, he didn't want to hurt a friend. Something beautiful somewhere laughed.

“Your sentiment will be your undoing, Pooka!” Dream shrieked, an enchanting child emperor watching a gladiatorial bout, but there was no doubt which way thumbs would point when it came to the decision, death or life. They clapped their hands in glee, and Tooth with a cry flew to their side, combing adoring fingers through their hair.

She must be bleeding, she thought, looking down at the smears of blood on her hands. For a second, she blinked, and there was a hint of fang to Dream's Chesire grin that hadn't been there before, a scream of madness to their eye, but then Dream smiled at her, and she was lost.

Bunny was shouting, scrambling backwards. North inexorably kicked out his legs from underneath him, planted his boot on his chest and held the tip of his blade to his throat. He was panting, the exertion of the fight getting to him, but everything was rapidly ceasing to matter except pleasing the beautiful dream-child.

“ _North!”_ Bunny cried, and North's sword arm stopped short, vibrating, barely an inch from sheering off Bunny's head.

He blinked, confused, as if he'd woken from a pleasant daydream. “Bunny, old friend, what are you doing on floor?”

Realisation hit him like a herd of reindeer, and he staggered back, shaken deep to his bones. He'd been entranced, enspelled, controlled, and he hadn't even _realised -_

A soft giggle, and North whipped around, blinking away the immediate beauty that he saw and almost gagging when he saw what lay underneath. They were a short creature, with a jagged, Chesire grin and eyes as big as his fists, deep and soulless black, hooked claws and covered in blood, right through to the swirling mess of dream tendrils and tentacles that branched from their head like hair. Beside them, Tooth crouched and cooed, hands plunged into the bloody mess of tentacles atop their head.

“ _Aww,”_ Dream hissed, a forked tongue flickering over their lips, “I wanted you to make him _hurt,”_ they complained petulantly, just like a cheated child.

There was a shimmer of enchantment over Dream, and North blinked as before his eyes their form flickered and changed, becoming a woman so beautiful it could only be a dream, but nonetheless he was momentarily spellbound until Bunny kicked his leg, shouting, “Focus, you fur-brained Cossack!”

Tooth blinked in shock as the perfect child suddenly transformed into a woman, and then blinked again as she abruptly saw through the illusion to the twisted, nightmarish vision beneath. She yelped and sprung away, and Dream hissed, turning to her and adapting their form into the familiar slender form of a different woman, a cloud of billowing hair around her face, but the moment they did so North shook his head, broke free.

“It can only concentrate on one of us at a time!” Bunny yelled, and then stopped short as Dream's attention was attracted to him, and instantly their form rippled like water, becoming what North guessed was a beautiful Pooka, silver furred and only slightly shorter than Bunny, the exact same markings. Bunny stared like a man drowning, and North stepped in front of him, breaking the enchantment as Dream altered to fit North's dreams instead.

Dream shrieked, furious and unable to keep up. They stamped their foot childishly, and cried, “I tried being your sweetest dream... _now have your worst nightmare!”_

Tooth screamed as the exact copy of the maharaja that had become the Monkey King lunged at her, foul breath and madly gleaming eyes. _“Pretty bird!”_ he screeched. “No green woman to protect you this time, girlie!”

“Hey!” North boomed, and Dream turned to him, form shifting into a young woman who had once been like a daughter to North, who opened her mouth to speak but all that came out was blood, and through her chest was one of North's sabers. Katherine fell to her knees, eyes wide with betrayal, and managed to gasp, _“You are no different to what you once were!”_

Bunny threw a boomerang at the Dream-Katherine's head, and with a shriek they transformed into a sneering Nightmare King as he had once been, taller then ten men and Fearlings howling around him, a small Pookan kit held in his large grey hands. _“Your fault,”_ Pitch hissed, and with sickening glee began to crush the wailing kit, bones snapping and blood spraying his forearms and chest, all with that sick, sick grin of enjoyment.

Without needing to confirm the plan between them, the three Guardians encircled the young spirit, who was flickering between forms desperately, a thousand different voices and faces, every nightmare, secret fear, everything ripped out and exposed, festering under the night sky, as Dream in terror tried to frighten them away. The forms became shoddy as they pushed Dream, generic horror monsters with hideous teeth. The Guardians slowly advanced inwards, trapping the panicking Dream in a smaller and smaller circle.

“ _Stop it!”_ Tooth shouted, the razor sharp edges of her wings slicing through a sand-tentacle. Dream howled, although it immediately reformed, and tried a different tactic, instead assuming a perfect copy of Sandy as he'd been before his sickness, with a familiar bright grin that made the Guardians' hearts ache with loss.

“You don't need to kill me!” His voice was lullaby soft, though broken with panic. “I'm your friend, remember?”

“ _Sandy couldn't speak you idiot!”_ Bunny roared, throwing an egg-bomb that hit Dream directly in the face, momentarily blinding them.

They staggered, half-faced Tooth, assumed the shaky form of what North guessed was supposed to be Mother Nature, by the fact they had a lot of hair and were female-looking. “'Ana, please!” Dream pleaded. “Don't let them hurt me, 'Ana!”

“Oh, _please,”_ said Tooth incredulously, “have you _seen_ the amount of pride that woman has? She'd rather be eaten alive than ask for help, _ever._ ”

She threw one of her swords, pinning Dream through the shoulder. Dream wrenched at it, trying to reform around it, but their sand wouldn't cooperate, too jittery, and finally they gave up, form shrinking to the stained true-form of before, most of the blood gone from their rapid movements. They were crying, the hiccuping sobs of a petrified child, and the tendrils of their hair were whipping around them in distress. Their black eyes found North, begged silently.

“We aren't going to kill you, Dream,” North told the young spirit firmly. “We just want to talk, yes? But you must stop with all illusion and mind-games.”

“I promise,” Dream babbled instantly. Their mind was flooding with old memories that remembered innumerable hurts from these three people, punches and kicks that had broken bones and turning aside when the embodiment of their own terror had dragged them into darkness, into that long torture. “ _Please don't put me in the dark!”_ they begged. “I promise!”

The Guardians' eyes met over Dream's head. Tooth approached and gently pulled out the sword, sinking down beside the weeping spirit. Immediately Dream's sand reformed around the injury, seaming over flawlessly. They didn't bleed. “What do you remember?”

“'M scared,” Dream whimpered, flinched as Tooth reached up to run her fingers through their 'hair', gently massaging the bases of the snakelike tentacles. Dream leaned into the touch after a moment of deliberation. “I became whole,” they said, blinking innocently. “I was fractured and now I'm not and _don't split me apart again it hurts.”_

“Where's all that blood from?” Bunny asked suspiciously.

“I was...just _hungry,”_ whispered Dream. “But then the fleshbag broke and died.” They made a disgruntled face.

Suddenly, lights blared on in the retirement home behind them and there was a horrified scream that made Bunny twitch. The Guardians glanced at each other.

“Do you oath by your core that you mean us no harm, nor the children of this world, and that you will not try enslaving us with your dream powers again?” North demanded urgently.

Dream blinked their big black eyes and said, “I really _fucking_ hate oaths.” Nonetheless, with a little urging, Dream sulkily repeated the oath back to North, swearing they meant no harm. “You're _mean,”_ they complained petulantly, once the oath had been sworn. “Oaths _kill.”_

The Guardians winced.

Dream, looking at their faces, bit their lip. “Do you hate me?” they asked, sounding young, and North forcibly reminded himself that Dream really was only perhaps a day or two old. They'd all done stupid things when they were young, granted, not quite to the extent of murder, by the sound of the shrieking coming from inside the home, but the picking fights with other spirits and general disregard for others could easily be put down to Dream really only being little more than a child. Now Dream had sworn not to fight against them, there was no need to keep treating them like an active threat.

Jack Frost had taught all the Guardians a lot about snap judgements on young, frightened new spirits, too late to really help Jack, but perhaps they could do a better job with Dream.

North looked at the other Guardians, first at Bunny. Bunny glared, paws curling into fists and shifting his weight uneasily. His fur was still brushed up slightly, and his ears low, no doubt shaken even further by Dream's nightmare antics. North looked at him for a while, silently communicating, until at last Bunny sighed, shoulders slumping, and nodded. Tooth gave Dream a tentative smile, far quicker to nod affirmative to North.

“No,” said North, “We don't hate you.”

Dream's face lit up, and though they were covered in blood still, and their Chesire grin was more creepy than anything else, there was still a fragment of sweetness in the beauty of their gleaming eyes, their flawless skin. It was easy to tell that this creature was no nightmare, nor no sweet dream, but something merged as one, a powerful dream without the harsh separation enforced upon the core for so long.

“We want you to come back with us,” said Tooth.

“So we can have a little chat, yeah?” continued Bunny, making an effort to smile. “Get to know one another.”

Dream bounced, as if a switch had flipped they turned instantly from fear to enthusiasm. “ _Yes, yes yes yes,”_ they giggled, “I know you very well! It's only fair! All your pretty dreams and your tasty nightmares and everything in between!” They looked very excited. “We are friend-people yes?”

“Ah,” said Tooth, glancing at North for help.

“Of course,” North assured them warmly, meanwhile hoping to the heavens that the madness wouldn't last. “I am North, this is Bunny, and that is Tooth. You are...?”

“I'm your dreams! I'm a Dream!” Dream's smile, somehow, split even wider and they hopped towards North, launching onto his arm and wrapping their body around his entire left arm, pillowing their disturbingly grinning face on his shoulder, wriggling with maniacal joy. They were smearing blood on North's coat.

North shook his arm, but Dream only latched on tighter, the tendrils of their hair wrapping like rope around his bicep. North glanced sidelong at Bunny, who was doing his best not to burst out laughing at the dubious look on North's face.

“Back to the Warren?” he managed, while North glared, and tapped his foot, opening up a portal. He disappeared down it before his self-control broke, and Tooth, with a look that warred between sympathy and amusement, gestured for North to go next, with his small silver passenger.

“You have very pretty eyes,” Dream told North, and North smiled uneasily, thanked them, and tried not to think about the dead man's blood smeared all over Dream's face or the way Dream's smile contained just a little too much teeth.

He was sure it meant nothing. He was equally sure that he was going to be taking great care his eyes remained open and watchful around Dream anyway.

* * *

 

Mim sat back in his chair with a sigh, lifting his head away from the telescope. He rubbed his temples.

There was a clink as a glass of lightwater was set down beside him, and Mim muttered an absent gratitude. Fred the moonbot chirred an acknowledgement and then left his charge in peace.

Mim took a sip, his mind still on what he had just watched unfold below. Dream, the young new spirit. Even at hours old, so much happier, content in their self in a way that Sandy had never been, confident, happy, _whole._

They reminded Mim a lot of Sandy had been, when he was young, and Pitch too for that matter, although Pitch had never been amnesiac to the point Sandy had been and so was far less affected. He hoped Dream's jagged edges would smooth themselves out with enough time, as they'd done to Sandy.

A pang of guilt hit him. “Without me, this time,” he sighed bleakly.

The hours of quiet had done him good, and without the Guardians' constant mental feedback clouding his mind he had been able to sort through a lot of what had gone on, the new revelations. Jack's accusations repeated in his head and he sighed.

He had made a mistake, several mistakes. He'd allowed the memory of the past, the memory of parents he'd never known to prejudice him from the very start, and one of his dear friends had paid the price, and kept paying as Mim lived on in ignorance and self-righteousness.

He had done a wrong, his entire family had done a wrong. He didn't like to believe the truth that his mother had not been the airy, perfect sort of creature a lonely Mim had dreamed up, all those lonely nights looking up at the stars and imagining their faces, but rather closer to a mad, obsessive Mage whose love had broken her mind even before her powers could, as they did all Lunanoffs eventually.

 _The family curse,_ he thought bitterly. _Power, in exchange for madness._

There was no doubt in his mind that Kozmotis Pitchiner hadn't deserved the fate his mother had forced upon him. Not that anyone did deserve shadow-possession, and being forced to relive their worst fears for the rest of their lives. All he had done was love his wife, love his child and fought for a world where they didn't have to fear.

Mim couldn't help but pity Kozmotis. A ghost now, trapped, insubstantial, to wander the earth forever in torment, unless he could gain forgiveness and be released from the curse keeping him immortal. _Not till I forgive,_ the ancient memory of a whisper reminded him.

 _He has Jack, at least,_ Mim thought. If the emotions he had sensed from Jack were correct – well, it was unlikely that Kozmotis would ever lose Jack's support. Jack was too good a boy, even warped and fractured like he was currently, distorted by the weight of Mim's memories and of his past life as Nightlight, to allow his heart to control his head to the point of insanity, like Selena had. If they even went that far. It had been a tiring few days, and emotions were a tricky business.

 _You didn't deserve what happened to you._ He pressed his eye to the telescope again, tracking the form of Kozmotis, pale and translucent.

 _Were it me, I would forgive you and release you in a heartbeat,_ thought the last scion of the Lunanoff bloodline, son of Selena, and then yawned and ambled off to find somewhere to curl up and rest.

 


	36. Mother Knows Best

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm just going to give up and post up the really obvious not fooling anyone relationships I think. Warning- this has choking, catatonia and the manifestation of insects inside living creatures. *thumbs up*

 

Mother Nature cupped a small daisy, the pads of her fingers tenderly smoothing the crushed petals. Some careless boot had crushed the young plant, barely hours into its life. She breathed a kiss of life-magic over it and smiled as the broken stem righted itself, letting the daisy spring back. Plants were easy to please. She leaned back against the obliging trunk of a sleek yew tree, curling her knees underneath herself. Folding her arms around her stomach, she dipped her head, a storm of black hair hiding her face like a silken sheet. To anyone who didn't know her, which was everyone, it would have looked like she had fallen into a pleasant doze.

But Seraphina's eyes, while lidded, were still half-open, though dazed as if she was not quite present. Her awareness was spreading, throbbing first in the low pulse of life inside the tree, venturing out, exploring until the entire Warren was a steady, warm beat of life and energy inside her, pinpricks of light like stars the buzz of active minds. Her breathing slowed and deepened, automatically tuning into a pulse that hit behind her own heart, the thud of the Earth's heartbeat itself. At once she was everywhere, in the rain that fell on upturned faces, the wind gusting along empty streets, the swaying grass in the savannah, the prowling alleycat, the scurrying fieldmouse. The earth pulsed through her veins, and her hair swayed in an imperceptible breeze, the tips curling around branches, the tree itself reaching down towards her with a low, wooden groan.

Seraphina faded away, simply another current in an ocean of waters, and Mother Nature swelled in the spaces she had left behind, the ripple of seismic waves through her veins, neither cruel nor kind but wholly indifferent, above and intricately connected to each groping life on her surface.

She could spend weeks like this, years, centuries. She had done so, protecting herself from the shrieking pain of being hated, ignored, pushed aside by every spirit, her children each and all. She preferred to, not having to feel the ache of a human heart behind her fortifications. This way, Seraphina was nothing more than a buzz of loneliness in an entire planet's cries.

She didn't need _anyone._ She liked being alone.

 _'You always were too proud.'_ It was a familiar voice, soft with amusement, feminine.

Mother Nature irritably pulled herself out of her submersion, sensing four approaching lives, the solid steady drumbeat of North, the rabbit's pace of time that signified Bunny, the hummingbird heartbeat of Toothiana, and a peculiar shifting awareness, slick like the coils of a snake, brightening as if it felt her touch. The new spirit, she assumed.

 _'Hush,'_ she thought back, _'you lost the chance to judge me thousands of years ago.'_

 _'Whatever you say, Sera.'_ Damn her, and her insidious voice that hadn't left Seraphina alone. She didn't _care,_ realised Sera was arguing with a memory even as she laughed, soft like bell chimes.

Seraphina felt her cheeks warm as she opened her eyes, coughing slightly. She looked first to Kozmotis, her father, standing a little way away besides the dye river with Jack. They were laughing and talking, looking carefree and comfortable with each other in a way that made Seraphina's bitter heart ache with jealousy. She would never have that with him. She would never have that with anyone.

Because she didn't _want it,_ damnit. She was getting ridiculously sentimental. Seraphina blamed learning her father was...somewhat still alive for all this misbegotten wistfulness. She wasn't a creature made for friendships, for airy love. Time and time again, her life proved it. She was _meant_ to be alone, Mother to a world. It was simple.

She watched with a detached sort of interest as the three older Guardians appeared from around a trunk, an unfamiliar figure perched on North's barrel shoulders and giggling, Medusa-like tentacles of their hair trying to snare leaves off the trees. This life felt ancient, bigger, vaster than the other Guardians, and Seraphina knew without having to be told that this was Dream, the last remnants of Pitch and the Sandman. Despite herself, her eyes drifted to the birdlike woman hovering alongside her two friends, perfectly at ease and telling some joke that made her amethyst eyes brighten like freshly cut gems.

Seraphina's arms tightened around her stomach and she looked away, wondering again why she had bothered to stay here. The answer was as obvious as it was ridiculous, Kozmotis was here, and he wouldn't leave Jack. Seraphina wasn't ready to let him out of her sight yet, although she had requested some time alone. Partly to put her thoughts in order, mostly to unobtrusively drink in the sight of him, memorise his face, so faded and blurred in her memories, in a way she couldn't do with him right in front of her.

She sighed, began combing through her long waves of hair with her fingers. She encountered a particularly tough knot, tugged at it in frustration.

Kozmotis and Jack immediately drifted over to greet the Guardians, who fell easily into an animated discussion, the new spirit tilting their head and watching curiously, their onyx eyes gleaming like spilled ink with excitement. Seraphina smirked to herself. The new spirit was changing their face and body to disturb Jack now, appearing first as a perfect replica of Katherine _(so this is the girl you would make your Darkling Princess?)_ that made Jack blush, and then a leering Pitch that made him frown.

She had just noticed that Tooth was no longer with the others when there was a soft cough, and Seraphina became aware of the low buzz of Tooth's beating wings. Her lips compressed to a thin line, and pointedly Seraphina ignored her, concentrating instead on trying to unpick the stubborn tangle. With a huff, she gave up, covering her face with a black wave and looking away, not wanting to face Tooth's derision.

She went rigid when instead, she found soft, small hands deftly untangling the knot in her hair, found her heart bounding against her ribs, prickles of nervousness chilling her skin with cold sweat.

“So impatient,” said Tooth, so softly that Seraphina had to strain to hear her.

“I don't need your _help,"_ Seraphina spat, caught on the back foot, confused. They didn't do this anymore. Tooth didn't do this anymore, small fingers smoothing through Seraphina's inky hair like it was the night sky itself, infinitely precious and delicate.

“I know you don't,” said Tooth placidly, and in the brick wall of Tooth's implacable acceptance Seraphina's insulted pride broke and washed like the tide lapping at the base of a cliff. She'd always known what to say to calm Seraphina's outrageous pride, been the firm, steady one against which Seraphina could throw all of her mercurial temper, but it would still break in the face of that calm, fond affection, Tooth ever unruffled.

“ _Stop,”_ said Seraphina, bitterly, sounding a little more hurt than she wanted to. She quickly mastered her expression and deepened her voice, as if regaining control of her body would calm the storm in her mind. Tooth wasn't _allowed_ to do this anymore, kneel beside Seraphina and watch her with that calm, liquid purple gaze, as if she still _understood,_ as if she ever had. She wasn't _allowed,_ she wasn't _supposed_ to look at her with regret, almost pity-

“Sera-”

“ _Don't call me that.”_

Tooth sighed, eyes closing for a brief moment as she dug into a reservoir of calm. “Lady Nature.” It sounded too cold and flat and for half an instant, some weak part of Seraphina wished she had just said nothing. She quashed it instantly, ruthlessly.

“I just wanted to say...” Tooth paused, seeming to deliberate on the best way of moving forward. “What Jack told us of the past...and other things, I suppose...you were right.” She remembered that fateful, screaming row all too well, Seraphina's voice rising until the ground shook.

Seraphina's eyebrows nearly rose into her hairline. “A Guardian admitting fault. Someone call the choir,” she bit in a tone as dry as bone, and Tooth winced.

“The dark spirits...they aren't all evil, well, inherently evil, I guess. All those years I thought it was just Pitch, and you were right about him too. None of them were bad, just because their cores were...less fortunate than ours.” She knew instantly that she'd phrased that wrong by the faintly amused, largely disbelieving look on Seraphina's face.

“Well,” said Seraphina sarcastically. “I'm sure they'd be ecstatic to hear you say that. One of the _Big Four,_ finally realising they weren't all that. I'm sure they'd be just _starstruck._ ”

Every word was a knife, designed to hurt, and Tooth couldn't help but flinch as she realised she'd heard them before. Tooth flushed, and her feathers bristled slightly in agitation. Seraphina derived a sharp pleasure from her discomfort.

“Why do you hate the Guardians so much?” Tooth demanded. “I'm _trying,_ Sera, if you weren't so _unreasonable_ about everything-”

“If _I_ wasn't unreasonable? You're putting this on _me_ now?! You were the one who-” Seraphina interrupted, hackles rising, but Tooth spoke over her before she could finish.

“The one who _what?_ Decided to live my own life outside of your shadow? You were so _sore_ when I decided to be a Guardian because you couldn't control me anymore! I'm not a little girl, Sera!” Tooth was incensed now, her tail feathers flaring unconsciously, wings fluttering and fists clenching, although she remained stubbornly kneeling, at eye-height beside Seraphina.

“ _I_ never _wanted to control you!”_ Seraphina cried, incredulous, “ _You_ were the one who insisted on following _me_ around like a lovesick-”

“ _Bullshit!_ Even the _Monkey King_ saw it – you remember, when you practically _eviscerated half the jungle_ searching for me?"Tooth demanded, and Seraphina felt a high, ugly blush on her cheekbones, wanted to scrub the stain of it off her cheeks. She'd been furious, and she remembered that desperate time all too well, tearing through the jungle like a hurricane in search of a young Toothiana, the maharaja's cruelly glittering eyes, hideous paws tearing at her jade feathers, Tooth crying and the sneer of the Monkey King, _“come for your pretty bird, green woman?”_

“You were _nothing_ to me,” she hissed, a weak attempt at covering up and they both knew it, but it was delivered with venom enough that it was clear she wished it were true.

“If that's the case, Sera, why did you go comatose for several thousand years after I left?” Tooth's voice, gentled by some guarded hurt in Seraphina's eyes, was too soft for Seraphina to bear and she turned away, arms folding tightly around her stomach the way she always did when she was upset or couldn't face something.

Tooth worried her lip, debating reaching out to touch Seraphina's rigid shoulder. She didn't like seeing Seraphina like this around her, defensive, snappish, half-feral and skittish. The years alone hadn't done her any good, and Tooth had been too _stubborn,_ too convinced she was right, buying into Mim's spiel about protecting the children of the world from evil spirits to ever try and make things right. She'd gone, several times, to Yggdrasil, hoping perhaps that something would happen, and every time had seen Seraphina ensorcelled so deep within the planet's roots she was barely conscious of anything. Tooth had backed out, still enraged and too cowardly to approach Seraphina again, running away before Seraphina could sense her presence.

There were few things she regretted more. Whoever had said time healed all wounds was a fool.

Tooth opened her mouth to speak again, but before she could, Seraphina, her face still covered by a swirl of dark hair, beat her to it. “Why now? After...all those years.” She sounded unsure of the time, had probably lost track of it whilst her human mind was submerged in the channels of earth magic running through her body.

“With Sandy...and Pitch. I suppose it took the death of one of our best friends to make us see we were wrong.”

“The others share your view?” Seraphina's voice lilted with expectant amusement, and when Tooth hesitated, she chuckled bitterly. “You Guardians will never change. People never do.”

“How can you say that?” asked Tooth, took a risk and touched Seraphina's shoulder, whisper soft. “It's not true. You've become so shut away from everything, so guarded-”

The moment her fingertips brushed Seraphina's dress, Seraphina whipped around, emerald eyes lambent and hand gripping Tooth's wrist so hard she felt her bones creak. Tooth's wings fluttered nervously as Seraphina loomed over her, brows pulled into a thunderous scowl. Her hair billowed around her in storm that tousled Tooth's feathers. Seraphina's forehead was less than an inch from Tooth's when, startlingly, her other hand came up to encircle the sensitive, fleshy nub of where her left wing joined her body gently. Despite herself, Tooth shivered.

“I do not need your help,” said Seraphina coldly. “I do not want your companionship. I do not want you near me, ever again.”

Her fingers dug in _hard_ at the joint of Tooth's wing, and Tooth's mouth parted on a soundless cry of pain, tears springing up in her eyes. Was Seraphina going to tear off her wings, some paranoid part of her shrieked.

“ _Every gift I give is mine to rescind, pretty bird,”_ Seraphina hissed in her ear, and then contemptuously released her.

Tooth stumbled back, pain radiating through her entire lower back as Seraphina stalked off, both beautiful and terrible silhouetted against the clear sky.

 _I suppose I deserved that,_ she thought, and rolled her shoulder with a wince. _Always so damn proud._

Dream watched the tall woman with the stormy hair approach curiously from their perch on North's shoulders, and then dismissed her and refocused on the ghost instead. The ghost was avoiding eye contact, the white shade of his cheeks only paling when Dream tried to catch his eye. He did not like Dream, at all.

Ignoring them, however, was possibly the worst thing Kozmotis could have done. Dream _hated_ being ignored.

They started small, reaching out with sand tendrils to poke the ghost. Of course they could touch him, he still dreamt, after all. After that elicited no more reaction than an irritated glare and a slight step away, Dream decided a full scale attack was in order.

They launched themselves from North's shoulders, who made an embarrassing yelp as Dream's claws dug into his arm through the fabric of his coat, and hit the ghost's chest. The ghost, with a startled cry, almost fell through a tree and dropped his scythe in order to prevent cutting his pale friend. Dream hooked their claws into the grooves of his armour and grinned, a slow, Chesire grin that widened and widened with the ghost's startled eyes until it almost split their face in two.

“Hello!” said Dream brightly. “I'm the walking avatar of your dreams and nightmares! You've had ever so many naughty nightmares, Mr Pitchiner,” they added, and then broke down in giggling. “Get it? Get it? _Oh, I'm hilarious.”_

The ghost stared at him and then muttered a reply in a language they didn't know. Dream snarled, the last trace of good humour gone. So he had ignored them, insulted them, and now spoke in a language they didn't know to trick them? Heedless of the other Guardians, or of Mother Nature storming towards them, Dream curled over Kozmotis' shoulders and bent their lips to his ear.

And then they began to whisper the seeds of his worst nightmares into his skull.

“Hey!” Jack shoved towards Kozmotis, intending to rip the silvery spirit away from Kozmotis, no matter if they had once been Sandy. North half-started to pull Jack back, aware that Jack really had no idea what he was messing with, but before he could Kozmotis did something very odd that all made them stop and stare.

The ghost's body went entirely limp, standing upright but his usual proud bearing slumping, like a toy with the batteries pulled out. His head lolled to the side, and his eyes went glassy and dull.

“Oh,” said Dream, sounding vaguely irritated, as if they had been treated out of a good sport. “Someone broke this one.”

Dream's nightmarish words were having no effect on the ghost at all. Kozmotis looked blank, dull, shuttered. Waiting for a command.

Jack stepped forward, and then clicked his fingers in front of Kozmotis' eyes. There was no reaction, he had gone completely catatonic.

“Kozmotis?” he said softly, and then a little louder, gripping onto his shoulders and shaking him. Kozmotis simply moved with it, that terribly empty stare staring soullessly at Jack. He wasn't even crying anymore. Jack patted his hands against Kozmotis' cheeks, as if he could make the familiar tears, Kozmotis' remorse, return and Kozmotis with them. He never thought he'd miss Kozmotis' sadness so much.

“He doesn't see me,” Jack whispered. Three hundred years, three hundred years slammed into him like a truck and Jack was immobilised, held captive by his own fears as Kozmotis stared through him like he had never existed at all. Kozmotis, who was supposed to _understand,_ Kozmotis who Jack had slotted into his life like a puzzle piece, a silvery laugh on the breeze, a wisp of blood red poppies blooming over white snow. It had been weeks at best, but Jack had spent _three hundred years_ learning loneliness, and Kozmotis had blotted it out from the moment the shy ghost had pressed his icy palm to Jack's cheek.

Jack was all at once privy to the realisation that if he ever lost Kozmotis, something would end inside of himself. What that something was, how greatly it would affect him, Jack had no idea. All he knew was that somehow Kozmotis had put a piece of himself inside Jack when he wasn't looking and now Jack constantly searched for the rest of that little piece, his friend.

Suddenly, an earthen hand came out of nowhere and grabbed a fistful of Dream's tendril hair, yanking them away from Kozmotis and holding them mid-air. Dream, apparently unbothered by pain, smiled at Seraphina cheerfully, who did not look amused. Dream dangled contentedly, kicking their feet and grinning.

“Lesson one child. Do not feed off spirits. It's pointless and will not sustain you,” she said flatly, though the intensity of her glare never wavered. “Lesson two. _Especially_ don't mess with spirits that can destroy your entire food supply with a breeze in the wrong place, yes?”

Dream kicked their feet and giggled. “But _everyone_ is my supply,” they said sweetly, “you can't starve me, unless you destroy _everything_ that dreams.”

Mother Nature raised a smooth eyebrow. “You don't think I _want_ some repellent, uppity apes poisoning my planet, do you? I only keep them around because it sustains my spirits and it would be simply too much effort to rebuild life from scratch. But if it means killing you, little demon, let's see how long _you'll_ survive with nothing to dream at all, ever again, hmm?”

Dream pouted, but Mother Nature stared them down. There was a long pause, before sulkily Dream said, _“Fine. '_ M sorry.”

“Good child,” said Seraphina. “But is that any way to refer to me?”

Dream huffed dramatically. “Yes _Mother,”_ they drawled, with all the spoiled petulance of a bratty teenager.

“Excellent,” said Seraphina with false warmth. “Lesson three. _Moderate yourself._ That man has had nothing but nightmares for centuries. Look at him.” She yanked Dream's face up so they could see Kozmotis' glassy eyes. “He needs sweeter dreams now more than ever. If you go too much one way or another, you will upset the balance, and then I will have to punish you. You have upset Kozmotis' balance now.”

“Are you going to punish me?” asked Dream, not sounding particularly impressed.

“I need _some_ way to ensure the lesson will stick,” said Seraphina sweetly, and then gave them an intense stare, her eyes glowing bright green. For a moment, nothing happened, and then Dream's eyes widened in horror and they began to shriek and scream, thrashing like a cat on a hook, held by the hair.

“ _GET IT OUT GET IT OUT STOP IT I DON'T LIKE IT!”_ They screamed. In horror, the Guardians saw _things_ bulging underneath the surface of Dream's sand, things that mouthed and pushed at the barrier of sand with antennae and poking legs. Dream's cries abruptly stopped as they coughed and choked, spat out a leech.

Mother Nature inspected her fingernails idly. “I would have thought someone with your history would be a bit more sympathetic to possession victims. Life is a very interesting core to have, you know. I can create life _anywhere_ I choose. Halfway down your gut, for instance, I find is a good place to introduce new species of insect. Do you agree?”

Dream choked. Their eyes were bulging.

“Oh dear, the worms in your mouth appear to be limiting your capability for speech.”

It was at this moment that Tooth limped over, took one look at the thrashing Dream, the stunned, horrified faces of the Guardians, Seraphina's smug look, and the worm dangling halfway out of Dream's gaping mouth and said, tiredly, “Please tell me you're not doing the bug thing.”

“The bug thing _works,_ Toothiana,” said Seraphina, with an air of great patience.

“The bug thing is disgusting!” Tooth crossed her arms, stared her down. For half a moment it was as if the years fell away, all the arguments as the two women slipped into a camaraderie that made the watching Guardians blink in confusion.

Seraphina huffed. “You're no fun,” she muttered, with a twitch of a smile that quickly disappeared when Seraphina appeared to remember herself. Instantly she shot Tooth a particularly poisonous look. Tooth's brow furrowed and she crossed her arms, but she appeared more saddened than angry.

Carelessly, Seraphina dropped Dream on the ground. The spirit coughed, choked, and then a single, very large, fat pink worm slithered out of their mouth and into the underbrush. Dream, heaving for breath, turned positively starry eyes up to Seraphina.

“Oh, I _like_ you,” they said, breathlessly, and Seraphina smirked, slow and cruel.

“I have a feeling we are going to get on well, child. Now, Kozmotis, if you please?”

 


	37. Death of an Empire

Night had come, low wings of dusk brushing indigo over the sleeping Warren, fireflies and other nocturnal animals wandering peacefully beneath the stretching canopies of the groves Mother Nature had created. Somewhere, crickets rasped; there was the soft thump of a rook wheeling overhead, and quolls snuffled among the roots. The Moon hung like a milky eye, the stars tears splashed over rich black velvet. Silently, it looked down on a tall, pearlescent figure, gilded by the moon's rays, light refracting inside his intangible chest and sliding away altered.

Kozmotis Pitchiner stood alone on a tall rise, a trail of withering poppies at his shining heels and a scythe that dripped silver into the night held tight in one armoured fist. His face was turned up to the stars. His armour unveiled its true magnificence in the moonlight from which it had been made, each silvery whorl lighting up like a live wire, like the arabesque swirls of resplendent dreamsand cutting against the darkness above. Dream had painted the sky with messy trails, great, looping copperplate arches that created a shimmering church of the somnolent against a pitch black backdrop.

It was like a chimerical scene from a great painting, something thoughtfully named yet unobtrusive, provoking intense feeling in everyone who gazed upon it, though for what reason they knew not. To the frost spirit standing below, in the shade of the trees, it was a sight of such true wonder it took his breath away, cold, snatched air though it was.

An icy sylph himself, hair highlighted like the whitest snowcaps, eyes deepest blue like the hidden heart of Antarctica, armour sleek and dark like a spiral of wicked darkness caged in jagged ice, Jack idly tapped his staff against leaves and tree trunks as he passed, covering them with intricate, beautiful designs of cool translucence, gems more precious and impermanent than any hard-won diamond. His feet made barely any sound, padding softly through the long, swaying grass that cracked as his touch, but the wind seemed to pick up just to tousle his wintry hair, slide against his dark armoured arms, decorated in more frost swirls. It carried the lick of heat, blown across the dusty outback of the world above, but even that chilled to a frigid snap in Jack Frost's presence.

“Hey.” Sotto voce, it shattered the silence into crystalline shards, like cracks in a mirror, and the ghost, impossibly still, was rendered even more deathlike by the life of it.

He kept quiet. He did not want to wake the three sleeping Guardians below - recumbent, softly breathing forms, flushed with life that looked almost too vivid beside the comparison of the ice boy and the pale, pale ghost - by the banks of the multicoloured dye river, shifting tones of sepia, ink, starbright silver, jade green and gold in deference to the mystical night. Dream, the trails of their hair reaching out to sleeping minds all across the globe, crouched over them, humming tender lullabies as they gently guided their unconscious, vulnerable minds. Jack didn't know, didn't care where Seraphina had gone, probably to curl up beneath the shadows of a tree, solitary and unacknowledged, as was her wont.

Kozmotis didn't reply, but tilted his head slightly in Jack's direction to show acknowledgement. A sharp gesture, militaristic, formal. He hadn't spoken a word since his episode earlier that day with Dream, had escaped shortly after Mother Nature's persuasion had caused Dream to wring the sweeter dreams to overcome the nightmares possessing his wakened mind to solitude and hadn't attempted to seek any comfort or companionship since. At least he was responsive again.

Jack circled Kozmotis, took a few steps closer until he was right in front of him. Kozmotis looked past him, up at the sky, and Jack let him have a moment, memorising instead his face. He was as unchanged as ever, tall, starved and pale, mercury eyes with tears glinting like the rare, silent starlight sliding over the high arches of his knifeblade cheekbones, following the curve of his proud, straight nose, the thin, sulky mouth, dripped off his sharp jaw over the long column of his throat, exposed by the swept back collar of his armour.

Slowly, and smiling softly all the while, Jack flattened his palm against Kozmotis' breastplate. The metal was as icy cold as ever, and just as before, as seemed centuries and eons ago at the cusp of this whole mess, the grey soldier blinked and stared briefly. It lasted far less this time, before something thawed in the coldness of his eyes and he brought his large hand up to cup Jack's cheek with the tenderest of care. Jack turned his face into it, kittenish, seeking approval, touch, confirmation, and Kozmotis smiled like the breaking of a elusive and unseen dawn.

“ _I apologise,”_ said Kozmotis, stiffly, belying the almost-openness of his face, and he made to glance away from Jack, but Jack dropped his staff to catch hold of Kozmotis' chin instead, turning his face back towards him. Nonetheless, Kozmotis' eyes slid away from his, and his cheeks darkened with shame. His tears instantly froze when they made contact with Jack's skin.

“Hey,” said Jack again. _“Look at me. Come on,”_ he added, wheedling, grinned when Kozmotis did so with a huff. It was fake comfort, fake irritation, but it was real enough for two broken souls to pretend. _“There you are,”_ he said cheekily and Kozmotis rolled his eyes. The Constellar flowed easily from his lips, long, hushed sighs and drawn out sound that brought to mind lovers beneath the stars rather than the race of a long dead empire. 

“ _What are you apologising for?”_ Jack asked him quietly, seriousness falling back over them. Kozmotis closed his eyes.

Jack was just about to demand he open them again when Kozmotis leaned down to press his forehead against Jack's, the coolness of him pleasant against Jack's skin. His tears splashed Jack's skin, and for an instant it was if Jack had shouldered half the burden Kozmotis shared, Kozmotis' remorse curving icy tracks on his face.

“ _I stopped.”_ It was a simple, flat response, but no less true for it. Kozmotis had _stopped,_ completely halted in the act of being a person, replaced with a jerking facsimile of a puppet on a string. A learned behavior only more heartbreaking for its origin, all those thousands of years underneath shadow control had robbed him of mind, of personality that had taken a while to remember choice outside a pull of orders. _“It frightened you.”_ No question. Ruefully, Jack supposed the last few thousand years as a puppet of fear had taught him something.

“ _Yes.”_ He went for brutally honest. _“I was afraid you weren't coming back.”_

Kozmotis sighed, a little bitterly. _“I'm cursed, Shyak, to wander the earth forever unless I gain forgiveness. I suppose you can rely on the fact that I'll never go away.”_

Jack laughed at that, the corners of Kozmotis' eyes crinkled as his lips pulled up. _“Well then,”_ said Jack, teasingly, _“Don't think you'll be rid of me, either. I have forever to irritate you.”_

“ _Stars save me,”_ said Kozmotis, but he was grinning almost as much as Jack. His thumb stroked Jack's cheekbone. Foreheads pressed against one another, they stood, Kozmotis' cape tugging gently in an unfelt wind, Jack's hand curling against Kozmotis' still heart, Kozmotis' large palm cupping his cheek like Jack was made of the finest porcelain.

Jack tilted his head so their noses rubbed together, and laughed at the surprised look on Kozmotis' face. “You have a big nose,” he teased, and Kozmotis' eyebrows quirked.

“ _It's not big...it's distinguished.”_

Jack spluttered a laugh, drawing back enough to playfully push his shoulder. Kozmotis was completely unmoved, like a solid block of icy marble. _“It's distinguished, my_ ass, _you have such a beak nose.”_

“ _I do_ not!”

“ _You're in denial, Pitchiner!”_ Jack skipped away, laughing, as Kozmotis playfully made to attack him with his scythe, catching the bottom of his staff instead and yanking him down towards the earth.

Their fun was interrupted by a soft, awkward cough. Jack and Kozmotis sprung away from one another as if they had been caught doing something illicit, Kozmotis immediately smoothing a blank facade over his face and Jack wishing for his hood to pull over his head.

It was Seraphina, who suspiciously had a hand covering her mouth as if she were trying to hide a smile. Her night black hair was rippling in the branches of the trees, and she, a slender elm herself, was barely visible between the trunks but for her gleaming eyes. She emerged, dark feet bare against the earth, dress rustling softly.

“May I join you?” she said softly. “The night runs wild in my veins.”

“ _Always,”_ Kozmotis responded affectionately. Seraphina's lips pulled shyly and she tucked a lock of wild hair behind her ear, uncharacteristically girlish and nervous. Despite his own mild dislike for her, Jack couldn't help but smile, endeared by her diffidence. 

Together, the three stood in rapidly more awkward silence, staring down at the other three sleeping, Dream messing with their dreams mischievously, swirls of beautiful sand around each resting head. The little weaver was humming as they worked, limber, glowing body moving in a graceful dance that suddenly brought to mind Puckish elves whiling away midsummer nights luring the unwary to their madcap celebrations. Unfettered, Dream seemed to truly come alive under the night sky, the darkness and stars sinking into their body like a shot to the veins.

“Look what he has become,” Seraphina's voice shattered the silence, quiet and laden with remorse. She stared down at Dream, crossed her arms tightly over her stomach. “It's my fault. If I had not sworn balance, Captain Sandy could have died in peace.”

“But you had to,” said Jack, catching her eye and refusing to look away. “You saw what an unbalanced society did to the world.” He gestured to Kozmotis, implying the Golden Age. “An age of light without fear, and it all crashed because people weren't cautious enough, let themselves be betrayed and played.” He patted Kozmotis' arm to let him know he hadn't meant him personally.

Kozmotis chuckled slightly blackly.  _“If anything, that makes it my fault, since I was the one who captured the fearlings.”_

“ _If you hadn't, the entire universe would have been destroyed sooner or later,”_ Seraphina protested lightly. _“We all heard the stories of what they could do. Certainly all the stars would have been eaten. I think I can forgive you that!”_

The light-hearted teasing did the trick and Kozmotis abandoned his gloom for a small smile, a lessening of the severity in his features. Jack glanced down to Dream once more.

Dream met Seraphina's eyes with their glittering black ones, wetly gleaming like freshly spilled ink, and with a low, yawning smirk, they crept on all fours until they were beside the sleeping form of Tooth. A small, clawed silver hand cupped Tooth's cheek, thumbnail tracing the crease of her eye with deep, thirsty fascination. Dream's sharp claw tips scored a thin red line beneath Tooth's eye, and Seraphina's hair went up as her brows went down, storms gathering around her. Keeping their eyes on Seraphina, Dream blew a sprinkle of sand over Tooth's closed eyelids.

At first, the effects were not noticeable, but soon enough what dream they had given her became swiftly apparent. Tooth's cheeks flushed rose, her soft lips parted, her legs shifted, feathers prickling up like goosebumps. A half-formed name appeared to catch on her lips. Seraphina's hands tightened into fists as she glared daggers at Dream, who returned her stare with a deceptively sweet smile.

“Are they giving her a nightmare?” Jack asked, confused.

“No,” Seraphina ground out. Quite the opposite, judging by the way Tooth was arching, her hands digging into the dirt and wings fluttering. Dream, the little _shit,_ had the audacity to _grin_ at Seraphina.

Mother Nature lifted her palm and deliberately allowed a cockroach to crawl over her wrist, fully visible to Dream. They evidently got the message and withdrew their direct influence, though pouting and sticking their tongue out at her as they did so. _No fun,_ their eyes glittered.

“What was that?” Jack asked again, Seraphina didn't respond.

“I thought the idea of staying at the Warren was keeping Dream from impressionable minds,” she muttered instead, and strode down to presumably stop the naughty spirit from causing any more mishaps.

Still chuckling slightly, Jack reached for Kozmotis' hand. His hand groped in thin air, and frowning, Jack turned to look at him. He swore Kozmotis had been right there-

The shock was like a bolt of icewater, and Jack shouted in horror. Seraphina half-turned.

Jack's hand was plunging straight through Kozmotis' chest.

He could feel nothing, and Kozmotis was rapidly fading, eaten from inside like someone had flipped down the colour shading. Not the icy coolness he associated with the ghost, nothing, just air, as if Kozmotis wasn't real at all.

Kozmotis was saying something, but the wind snatched his words, an unholy, howling gale that yanked him, helpless, in the eye of the hurricane. His eyes, though, Jack could make out perfectly, wide, dry in the whip of the gale, sharp with shock and the horror of a freshly broken promise, knew the shape of a name on his thin lips. A glowing cage of silver light that vibrated jaggedly with centuries old spite and pain constricted around Kozmotis' torso like hungry claws scraping for stars, and the ghost screamed, mouth rigid like a hideous contortion, a caricature of the solemn, noble creature Jack knew. His scythe and cloak were torn from him by glowing fists. Kozmotis began to kick and struggle, or perhaps it was his body, jerking like electricity had been shot through it, a fierce light building over his skin.

“Father!” Seraphina cried, stopped helplessly beside Jack. Rough, stained hands tried to snatch through the winds, but they were no ordinary things but the howling breaths of the dead, and in an instant her hand withered, flesh falling from her nut brown palm and instantly rejuvenating. She made a horrible sound, wrenched her hand back against her chest.

“You forgave him,” said Jack wildly, “but, but it had to be a Lunanoff- I don't- _KOZMOTIS!”_

He reached out, tried to grab Kozmotis' fading hands, was barely aware of Seraphina shouting a warning laced with insults. Three incandescent symbols were burning strongly on Kozmotis' chest, symbols Jack had watched a vengeful viper carve into his chest with the poison of her fangs. The soul of Kozmotis Pitchiner had achieved forgiveness – and now would be granted Death.

A skull's face grinning in the gloom, a shadow, rising like the endless, twisting, gnarled like hunched, withered cemetery gates from Seraphina's shadow; Death had come.

“ _Oh,_ pretty, I've been waiting for you for _ever_ such a long time,” said Death, rich and cloying like shutting doors, the spill of grave-mold over sunken coffins.

His empty sockets flared with greed, his ragged cloak lashed by the gales of his sulfurous breath, blowing waves of sickening stench at Jack, who recoiled and gagged, vomit churning in his stomach. He loomed behind Kozmotis, raising his worn, dark scythe, the blade yellowed like old bone, sap running down from the tip and spraying the earth with decay. Deathcap mushrooms sprouted, hideous poisons as Seraphina's presence forced Life and Death into close quarters.

“ _NO!”_ Jack howled, ragged, rough, raw. He flung himself forward thoughtlessly, clawed viciously as scarred, sun-darkened arms constricted like tangler vines around his waist, anchoring him against Mother Nature's body. She smelled of fresh rain and new leaves, and her voice was choked with tears he could see none of on her anguished face.

“ _Father!”_ she cried again, jaw clenched tight, desperate eyes, and for an instant Kozmotis, incandescent with white flame, seemed to meet her eyes.

He hung there, for a split second moment engraved eternally on Jack's eyelids, before something like acceptance, joy,  _relief_ emanated from the light, and Kozmotis in the centre spread his arms, allowed himself to be taken by light as he had been so forcefully claimed by shadow. Jack was held momentarily breathless, dumbstruck, only aware of Death's great scythe rising over the glowing spirit like a ominous foreboding. Forgiven at last, curse revoked at last, the soul of Kozmotis Pitchiner could have his death, his surcease and reprieve from the endless series of horrors his life had become, trapped like a circus of nightmares as the main act to an audience of soulless faces.

The scythe began to fall, and Jack watched it, voice torn from him but mouth shrieking an unheard warning,  _no no no no -_

Death brought the scythe down quickly, completely, with the clean efficiency of a creature who had done so every day of his living memory, and perfectly soundless, Kozmotis's body gleamed, a flat, dark line directly bisecting him, halving his stunned, peaceful expression. There was another breathless silence, and Jack was aware that someone was screaming, but it sounded tinny and far away, meaningless, worthless.

Kozmotis' body sagged, folded in on itself like a candle beneath a roaring inferno, that proud hawkish face disintegrating into a floppy, cartoonish droop, horrifying as flesh dripped away from bone, and bone swift after, puddling into a bright, bright silver ball right before Death's stretched wide jaws, dislocating bone creaking and tombstone teeth lengthening like a hungry nightmare. The little guttering candle flame of Kozmotis' spirit flickered, and then was sucked inexorably backward toward that hellish black hole in Death's grinning skull face, the churning vortex of black fire in his starved maw.

Jack became aware that he was screaming Kozmotis' name, dreamlike, he watched as Death's jaws snapped shut around the soul with an awful finality, like every grisly axe swing connecting and thump of heads rolling.

The Grim Reaper rolled his neck to the side until the joint let out a series of macabre cracks with deep satisfaction, his gleeful skill face lit up by the fires in his eye sockets. “A pleasure. Still, a shame. The lad was ever so helpful with my job.”

He inclined his head politely to Jack and Mother Nature. “A delight to see you, as always, my dear Life.”

“ _LET HIM GO!”_ Jack shrieked, mindless with horror, the approaching blankness of a nearby truth he refused to admit. “You _monster-!”_

“Apologies, master Frost,” Death said, with an air of placation and general long suffering, “No can do. Bit difficult to recover from me, you know. Death.”

“Koz- _no-_ he can't-”

“Jack,” Seraphina held Jack to her, somehow desperately motherly, hands roughly patting through his flyaway hair, “Jack, he's _gone-”_

“Is he well?” asked Death concernedly. “It's not time for you yet, young Frost. Wait your turn.”

Seraphina ignited like a match to gasoline. “GET  _OUT!”_ she roared, and the earth rumbled, the skies split, and lightning cracked. Rain lashed like stinging tears that Seraphina herself refused to weep, and somewhere, the hoarse cry of North shouted in alarm. A tree groaned, struck bare by lightning, and crashed into the dye river with a thunderous din. Animals added their voices to the racket, screaming and crying and emerging, teeth, claws, beaks bared, ready to rend flesh on a skeleton who had none.

Death made the sort of face that somehow conveyed he would purse his lips, if he had any. “No one is ever pleased to see me,” he tutted, sounding rather offended.

“YOU JUST ATE THE SOUL OF MY FATHER!”

“I'm just doing my _job -_ really now, there's no need to get testy-”

Seraphina's skin lit up with bright, emerald green, and her eyes glowed. Jack fell from her touch, crying out as animals and trees split from her skin, slashing snakes with dripping jaws rearing from her tresses, lions swelling from her fingertips, blast after blast of sheer, mind-numbing _power,_ power that drank and sang and moved in every living creature, that suffused the earth like a heartbeat, and Jack, held spellbound in its epicenter, felt very much a scarecrow before a tsunami, watching the mottled waves crest high above his head, the inevitable crush awaiting.

“ _LEAVE!”_

“If you _insist,”_ Death sniffed, and with a sweep of his cloak and a wave of sulfurous black, he was gone.

It began to hail.

 


	38. Grief

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My god I promise this is the last of the Seraphina centrics I swear *guilty looks* i just...love them...so much... *sighs* *looks at notesheet* probably going to end up writing a wildqueens prequel...

“He's...gone...?” The words, small. Quiet, as if by their silence they could grasp denial. “He...where did he go?” Jack looked at Mother Nature, as if she had all the answers.

Impossibly young. Impossibly lost. White head tipped towards the Moon, when she didn't reply, but found no solace there in the dark curtain of the sky, regretful milky eye. Pregnant silence stretched on, like the luxuriant uncoiling of a deadly panther's hunting crouch, calm before the deadly storm. Vines still thick around the wrists of a pale frost boy, their mistress unsure of this blank, shocked temperament. Would he try to attack? Seraphina didn't want to hurt the moon child particularly, but she would if he attacked her.

“He's dead, Frost.”

Hard and cold. Colder, chillier than a glacier and three times more immoveable and immense. Straight line of shoulders, hands clasped behind her back. Ripple of ink hair. Gleam of pond-murk eyes. The coil of a snake slithering comfortingly around her neck. Tickle of a monarch butterfly landing on the tip of her nose. She blew it away.

“Death took his soul. It's over for him.”

Her words were brief and sharp, shocked even herself. The disappearance, the end of the ghost sank deep into her bones like icy claws. _Gone, gone, gone again and this time it's your fault. They always leave you, you always make them leave, failure of a woman – return to your trees and flowers, they'll want you, the only things foolish enough to want a wreck like you._

If Seraphina had been kinder, warmer, she would have taken Jack's hand, perhaps embraced him, kissed the top of his head and smoothed away the tears she could see brimming. Furiously, Jack blinked them away. But Seraphina hadn't been anything approaching soft and gentle in centuries. Comfort had always been Toothiana's job. When she left, she took it with her.

Breathless, disbelieving laughter. He was used to laughter, but not in this way. Never in this way. “That's stupid, he can't _die,_ he was – he was cursed, and how can you kill something that's already dead...?” Another few, cracked notes, like the shattering of ice between an unwary child's feet, a death he had never known but remembered as if it were his own. “You're – you're lying...” It sounded feeble. It was all he had. “Not...not true...”

“I am not lying. Kozmotis is dead. You watched him die,” Seraphina said flatly, her beautiful face as expressionless and inflexible as if she were an icy Aphrodite carved from solid marble. Her hair moved slowly, rhythmically around her, like waves. Hail bounced down from the sky, sharp, cutting ice tears that ripped holes in fragile, tender leaves. Clouds only thickened, something tense, fraught, expectant in the air. The Moon struggled to see past the columns of murk in a cathedral of silent thunder, but removed from earth, there was little that could be done.

“Mate,” said Bunny softly.

The Guardians crested the rise, looped into a loose ring around Jack and Seraphina, staring each other down. Bunny placed a paw on Jack's shoulder, North bent to pick up the staff Jack had dropped. Dream stared uncomprehendingly around North's legs, hiding behind him like a frightened child waiting to be told off. They made a soft, low noise of confusion, and automatically North patted the writhing tendrils of their hair and murmured a gentle phrase in Russian. Somehow, Dream was soothed, though they worried their sharp nails between their teeth, evidently not understanding what had transpired.

Seraphina wondered if Dream knew what death was at all.

“Seraphina-” Tooth, wincing as the hail drummed bruises into her flesh, reaching tentatively out towards the solitary bastion of reserve that was Mother Nature in all her uncaring glory. Seraphina, too remote, allowed herself no ray of light to pierce the deep smooth ice freezing her depthless soul, could not bring herself to open the floodgates of remembrance. Toothiana had _only ever been nothing;_ Seraphina clung to it, made it true in the moment so she could isolate herself.

Tooth's wings twitched, she was still holding the left a little stiffly, as if in memory, and she hesitated, warring with herself. Seraphina did not bother to look at her once, as if Tooth was so insignificant she didn't deserve a spare glance. A flash of hurt in Tooth's eyes, and then slowly she stepped back, the feathers of her crest pressing tightly to her skull, something as equally remote on her face. She would reach out again and again, but if no one in the void was listening, what was the point of screaming?

All at once, Seraphina looked lonelier than ever, the four remaining Guardians and Dream ranked behind the shocked Jack. She lifted her chin slightly, aware of how outnumbered she was, her hair billowed threateningly, as if she were puffing up to show dominance.

“You...you forgave him,” said Jack dazedly. There was a brief pause, and he closed his eyes, something tense working through his muscles that remembered years in the mad mind of a young tsar. He opened his eyes and they were dark, shadow blue, like a spiral of black ice crowning Antarctica. He seemed to rouse into a frightening anger, pale fists clenching. “This is your fault! You killed him!” He grabbed his staff off North and pointed it at Seraphina like she was the enemy, like she was a cut-out villain he could waste his anger and trembling emotions on.

“Don't be foolish, child,” Seraphina said coldly, eyeing the frozen wood with flat disdain. As if there was anything that little twig could possibly do to _Nature._ “He was already dead. I only released him.”

He was dead, she told herself, drowned the impetuous, screaming girl under layers and layers of ice once more, wrapped those foul rotting bandages right back over her heart, it mattered nothing to her. She had declared herself removed from his fate long ago, had told herself he had died long ago, when she had grown to a woman without him. Seraphina needed no father. Mother Nature needed no human, no creature, no stay against loneliness and the bitterness that swelled, acidic, to corrupt her from inside out.

She _didn't._

Jack shook his head, mockingly, childishly amazed. “Do you _even care_ your father just _died_ in front of you? What sort of monster are you?”

The Guardians glanced at each other worriedly, Bunny shook his head swiftly at North, no doubt remembering his burning Warren. Tooth watched, tight-lipped and a glare in her rose eyes that told Seraphina all too well she thought Seraphina was handling this badly.

_As if you had the_ right-

The sight of Tooth's disapproval ignited the dead slurry of cold emotion into a wildfire, and her power bled, out of control, into their surroundings. Hail pockmarked the ground like bullets from a constant war for control inside Seraphina's thrumming mind. Thunder growled low in the distance, and a bitter wind threw itself, clawing, at the Guardians. Tooth shivered, a jewelled creature designed for the humid heat of jungles, and Bunny groaned, rubbed his arms. Dream caught a hailstone on their tongue.

Seraphina's lips tightened and lightning cracked overhead, punctuating her words with all the expectant finality of a gavel. “How dare you?” she hissed, and the thick boa constrictor around her neck echoed her.

“How dare I what? Don't tell me you're _offended!_ Are you made of _stone?_ ” Jack prodded cruelly, a vicious twist to his lips that mocked his centre.

All she could do was blink in shock. Was the boy serious? “He was my father! Of course I care!” Seraphina spat, outraged beyond expression, leaning forward to deliver her piece as she struggled to regain reason. “But he has been dead a long time, Jack Frost, and if there is anything Sanderson has taught me it is that _what is dead must be allowed to die!”_ To her shame, she felt a stab of grief, so sudden and unexpected it brought tears to her eyes. As ever, she would cry over the death of an ancient star pilot rather than the passing of her father.

“YOU DIDN'T LET HIM DIE, YOU KILLED HIM!” Jack roared, slamming the butt of his staff into the ground and stepping forward challengingly. Frost shot from the end of his staff, sending North and Bunny stumbling back, and a gust of arctic wind blasted Seraphina. Tooth was caught in the blast, her beating wings filling with air and yanking her over Seraphina's head, where she was abruptly sucked into the approaching storm. Her cry was loud, but neither Jack nor Seraphina paid her any mind, blind to anything but their blame game.

“ _Do not challenge me boy, or I will_ end you!” Seraphina's patience was never solid in the best of times, and under all the stress it gave way. The storm darkened, howling currents of wind, icy and sheeting with rain, batting back and forth like the colliding teeth of snarling bears. Overhead, Tooth was thrown around like a ragdoll, screaming as the unnatural winds pulled her wings back painfully.

“Tooth!” North shouted.

“Boy? You're the child! Selfish, bratty Seraphina – you always were-!” Jack overrode the Russian, impossibly, his colder winds throwing North's words back into his face.

A thunderclap, and a jagged lance of lightning spiked, nearly hit the helpless Tooth as it struck an unlucky tree, fire blooming like an unfurling, deadly poisonous rose. Bunny cursed.

“Put fire out!” North ordered Bunny, and the Pooka, fur plastered to his drenched flesh and wincing every time bruising hailstones struck him, nodded grimly and bounded off. North grabbed Dream and slung them over his shoulders. “We are going to get Tooth,” he said firmly, and Dream blinked big black eyes in understanding.

“YOU KNOW NOTHING OF ME! _I have lived ten thousand more lives than you will ever see!_ I am a Mother to an entire _Earth,_ Moon Child!” Seraphina screamed, high and shrill. “Every one of my children I will watch _die_ and there is _nothing_ I can do to protect them! Every life on this planet...from it's birth, to its death. And believe me, Jack Frost...sometimes death is preferable to an old soul. I have lived long enough to see death become preferable in the face of continuing.” Her words quietened towards the end, the heavy weight of weariness slowing her own half of the storm and providing a crucial window.

Dream shot a tendril of silver sand out towards Tooth. The wind buffeted the sandy tentacle, blowing it into ten thousand scattered silver grains. Doggedly, it reformed, looping around Tooth's waist and yanking her towards North, who caught the shivering bundle of feathers, one large hand pinning her wings.

“You _killed your own father,”_ Jack repeated, voice colder than his name. He was crying, tears that froze on his cheeks, childishly, he ran from the truth of what had happened, childishly, he blamed Seraphina, and suddenly it was so obvious to the Guardians that despite the weight of cracking centuries on his tired mind, or perhaps because of it, Jack Frost was still so _young._

“ _MY FATHER DIED ON THAT PRISON ROCK HOWLING FOR MERCY! My father died a_ coward! My father _died_ long before I met this reflection!” Seraphina screeched, bitter, mouldering truths wrung free from the agony of grief she had carried for millennia longer than Jack had.

“No he _didn't!_ He was _alive-_ and you don't care at all, look at you!” Jack gestured wildly to Seraphina, who faced off against him in anger, the splintering heart of her rammed so deep inside it sank like a lodestone and she half-feared she would never find it again. 

“GET OUT! YOU KNOW NOTHING OF ME!” She threw her most blistering wind at him, and Jack yelped, covered his face as the frost on his armour and in his hair instantly melted.

She would not deal with this. She could not deal with this. Too many faux-healed scars ripped open, too soon. Kozmotis had been entirely dead, and then he had _come back._ Toothiana had been gone forever, and then she had extended a hand, whispered apologies in the language Seraphina had breathed once, a language woven between their lips for them and them alone. The last remnants of Sandy, _extinguished._ Pitch Black, an old reviled shadow, _gone._ Too many earth-shattering revelations and turn-arounds for Seraphina, used to having thousands of years to ponder in that slow, meditative state she assumed to hide from herself. She had been drawn out of her trances by the tipping balance even before it had all started, had made her first, tentative forays in active consciousness for the first time in _centuries_ bare _weeks_ ago, and Seraphina _could_ not, _would_ not handle it.

Her storm dropped, and then wailed as Seraphina allowed the lanced corruption of her to drain out like infection from ancient wounds, sickening and twisted and disgusting, just like her, beneath the beauty of her flesh. The ugliness that Toothiana had once claimed to love, the heart of her, but when it had reared its head she had _left, left_ like her father had and Sandy did and-

There were tears threatening, she realised, with a numb sort of horror. She was going to _cry,_ like some weak maiden in a fairy tale.

“I know all I have to know about _you –_ cold, heartless _bitch_ that you are!” Jack accused, and the storms above completely halted as Seraphina stared at him in shock.

_'“You're a cold, heartless bitch! You never cared for anyone but yourself!”'_ Seraphina felt something like a desperate laugh bubble up. If she didn't laugh, she would cry, and there were  _none_ here who deserved her tears. She couldn't say anything, only stared at the winter child, a spirit she might have considered an erstwhile son, if ill-conceived, but he had been only an eyeblink old and already slid into the Moon's lap. 

Jack looked at her, and she saw suddenly that he was crying, jerking sobs wrenched from some pitiful place inside of him and freezing when they met his cold flesh. He looked overwrought, over-stressed, just like her, but there was an edge of satisfaction in rendering her speechless, and Seraphina knew that Jack  _hated_ her, why she had no idea – perhaps that ancient non-memory of ice breaking, imprisoning, held close to the earth's breast for years.  _I did nothing to you and yet you already hate me._

“LEAVE!” She cried again, clenching her hands into fists and gasping in a breath that sounded too suspiciously choked. The lump in her throat made it hard to breathe.

Jack glared at her, and then Seraphina's winds swirled around him and he arrowed into the sky, a receding dark blot taking her powers for his own.

She clenched her arms tightly around her stomach, ducking her head. Her hair swirled about her, cutting her off from the world, and her shoulders began to shake. Safer in the isolation of her hair, Seraphina allowed the tears, quiet, ugly things, to trickle silently from old, tired eyes. She wept, and the sky heaved and wept with her, rain pouring out of clouds that had yet to dissipate. She sank to her knees, forgetting in her misery the presence of the other four, so long without another human life to watch her that her solitude had blinded her to them.

But she was not alone, and Bunny glanced at Tooth, who was watching Seraphina with pity, and a fair bit of longing. She wanted to go to Seraphina and calm her, Bunny could tell, or at least be with her in her loss. He remembered his own days, rattling about in his empty warren and frenziedly making chocolate for mouths that would never eat anything but dirt ever again, wishing and wishing that _someone_ would keep him company, _someone_ would at least _care_ he was still alive, no matter how much Bunny cursed and shouted and pretended he wasn't glad to see them. The corners of Bunny's lips lifted into a smile as he thought about one particularly rough Russian bandit, who knew a fair bit about loss himself, teaching him how to reinvent himself as something other than the _last_ survivor.

“No one should have to grieve alone,” Bunny stated equivocally, and Tooth glanced quickly at him, her damp feathers rustling.

“She won't let me...” she whispered. “I made a mistake, a long time ago, and she'll never forgive me.” She looked down, her crest quivering in abject misery. “I didn't realise how much it would affect her...I thought she never...” Tooth sighed, rubbing the burn scar on her wrist absently. “I suppose it doesn't matter anymore, does it?”

North came up on her other side, resting a broad hand on her shoulder. “All you can do is try, Toothy, and try again to show you are truly sorry, yes?”

“Don't let her be too alone,” Bunny added. “She's...she's one of the last of an entire age, and that's lonely enough with friends to help you look in the present.”

Tooth looked up at Seraphina dubiously. “Do you promise to fish me out of the tree she's going to throw me in?”

North laughed and clapped her on the shoulder. “That's the spirit, Toothy!”

Tooth glared at him. “Bunny?”

“I got it sheila, don't worry.”

Squaring her shoulders, Tooth took a fortifying breath, stretching out her wings briefly and resettling them comfortably, wincing at the ache. She began to trudge up the rise, looking nervous and fluttery. She approached Seraphina carefully, clearing her throat to announce her presence.

North watched her go and thought about Jack flying off. He sighed gustily and rubbed his forehead. Once they'd found somewhere to leave Dream, North intended to find Jack and talk to him, alone. From their first meeting Jack had proved that he worked better in one on one situations with North confronting him directly, and North was worried about the young Guardian. He had been close to Kozmotis, extremely close in a way North knew he wouldn't be able to quite understand. North himself was still privately reeling over the shock of it all, the abrupt wakening, the events which had become horrifically clear when Death swallowed Kozmotis' soul.

Seraphina stiffened, suddenly realising she was not without audience, and immediately walls slammed down around her. Furiously she scrubbed at her cheeks, horrific shame creeping through her at finding them wet. No, _no, not_ in front of the _damn Guardians-!?_

“S- Lady Nature...?” Tooth winced. Immediately, she knew she had said the wrong thing. One moment she was forbidden from using Seraphina's name, the next it was patently clear that she was supposed to. _Loving you is like throwing myself into a briar patch again and again and expecting a different outcome each time._

“Stop _trying,_ Toothiana,” Seraphina said wearily, her voice betraying her and coming out cracked and hoarse. “I'm not your friend, I'm not...I'm not your _lover,_ I am nothing to you!” Her voice began to rise, igniting in anger rather than face more heartache. “So _stop damn trying to make a fool of me!”_ She rose, fluid, to her feet, and Tooth felt her heart sink in pity at the look on Seraphina's face, a dog that had been raised on abuse trained to bite and snap and not knowing how to ask someone to comfort the lost look in her eyes, the tightness in the way she held her stomach as if she would fall apart. “I hate you,” she said, weakly, and then again with more conviction, _“I hate you!”_

 _Who are you trying to convince?_ Tooth bit her lip. She wanted to hug Seraphina, latch onto her like she used to and hold the stubborn, stiff woman until Seraphina finally spent herself and buried her face in Tooth's feathers as if she could hide from her emotions. Her father had just returned, dug up all those wounds from the past and then died, _again,_ and there was no way that Seraphina could ever possibly be as fine with that as she was clearly attempting to pretend she was. Tooth wanted to scream in frustration. Nothing was ever _easy_ with Seraphina.

“Seraphina,” Tooth said patiently, gently. “Seraphina, please.” _Don't do this to yourself._

“You Guardians-” Seraphina said wildly, and already the wind was picking up, “You're disgusting, you make me _sick,_ I _despise_ the _sight_ of you! Leave me alone!” she shrieked, and Tooth staggered back and cried out.

For the second time that day, a gust of wind picked her bodily up and threw her into the air, where she hurtled, screaming, directly into a tree. Seraphina vanished in a thunderclap, her body instantly disintegrating into thousands of butterflies.

“What did I _tell_ you?” Tooth groaned, as Bunny went to help her out the tree.

 

 


	39. Funeral

Time slipped away, as it was wont. The world kept on turning, children kept on growing, and eventually, forgot about the internet craze of the Grey Soldier. They had other things to worry about, like learning to skate in the frequently harsher, longer winters. Their mothers joked amongst themselves that Jack Frost had given up nipping at noses and was now trying to blast them right off faces.

They would not be wrong.

Although perhaps it would be fair to say it wasn't intentional.

Jack had barely played at all with children for the last few decades or so, preferring instead to hide away in the silent, empty darkness of Pitch's old lair. Bouts of solemnity struck him like a clockwork disease, holding him melancholy in the iron shell of the broken globe more often than not. Other times he was in a flurry of activity, supporting crumbling stone with pillars of bright ice and breathing puffs of light into the darkened corners, transforming the filthy, dilapidated lair into a clean, well lit and airy space, though it was still an eerie mix of cheeriness and the macabre, shafts of blue tinted light through the bars of dark tarry cages.

Jack worked, and restored, and buried himself in the monumental task he had undertaken, rather than think about the events that had occurred almost eighty years ago. The surroundings, bleak and haunted as they were, allowed him that escape, as long as he pretended he didn't know whose dried blood he was scrubbing up.

The passage of time was a dim, unreal thing. To an immortal, time meant little, and Jack sent periodic blizzards out of the lair at unseasonable times, giving himself small boosts of belief that, with the other Guardians' work, kept him ticking over, content and strong. He had no particular desire to go out and interact with the handful of believers that were devoted especially to him, leeching off the brightness of their flickering lights until at last the child grew up and forgot him.

Ironic, that he had begun all this wishing for nothing more than to not be alone, and yet now the idea of interacting with someone was enough to cast him into a foul mood.

He knew this because every five years one of the Guardians, usually North, made a point of 'dropping by' to talk to him. Jack normally did his best to forget about these visits until they happened, so on that one day when North was next due a visit, it was entirely understandable to find him buried in the bowels of the lair, cursing as he tried to blast through a very stubborn door.

The lair was a recalcitrant place, full of false traps for the unwary, and was a labyrinth of dead ends, rock walls, and smothering, gloating shadows. Pitch's essence was stamped everywhere in his former abode, from the towering, narrow corridors that rambled on and on without any sense of ending, to the brief stretches of grey wall and unexpected dizzying drops, and most frustratingly, how the lair was almost completely impossible to navigate or understand. The moment Jack thought he'd uncovered a pattern, something new would appear to prove him wrong.

“ _Star-chasing piece of shit comet trail idiot asteroid dung-”_ Jack kept up a low monotone of steady cursing, wiping one faintly shining hand against his brow. He frowned and concentrated on his glow, (a remembered trick from being Nightlight, releasing the light that hid in his bones) brightening the area around him with an icy cold radiance.

The pale light shone wanly over the sooty, dirty grey stone, and Jack grimaced when he saw the unmistakable print of a bloody hand, trying to grip onto the wall for support. Deep scratches marred the stone – Pitch had slid down and collapsed into a heap at the foot, judging by the crusted blood stains over the floor. Jack tapped his armoured boot against the stain, instantly freezing it into peeling flakes that, with a breath of howling icy wind, were blasted forever from the rock.

The first few times, seeing real, horrible evidence of Pitch Black's heinous torture and eventual death had made him sick. But by now, Jack was simply used to cleaning up after the shade. He wished he could say a bit of blood was the worst thing he had found rotting in the depths of the lair. (Several whole skeletons of various creatures, suspiciously gnawed on right down to the marrow with sharp little teeth imprints in the bone itself, came to mind.)

And the _sand._ Sand was impossible to get out of armour joints, as Jack had found out the hard way, and was simply _excruciating_ to sweep up.

He slammed the butt of his staff against the stubborn entrance once more, and grinned when he heard the protesting creak of ancient, rusted metal hinges. Yes, stone doors and metal hinges. Pitch had quite the flair for the dramatic. With another bolstering gust of wind, Jack painstakingly worked the door open just enough for leverage to work against it, and then froze the hinges brittle and knocked it clean off.

The glow of gold caught his eye, and Jack halted in the doorway, mouth falling open in an honest expression of bewilderment. The entire cavern was _filled_ with it: silk fabrics, moth-eaten and covered in dust, hung like pinned butterfly wings to the inky rock; cups, trinkets, coins sprawled across the floor like an ungainly dragon hoard; ancient books with pages scattered everywhere but yellow covers; withered bouquets; fully complete dining sets, some with unrecognisable lumps of food still welded onto forks and plates; ruined tapestries and priceless works of art tossed carelessly next to brittle locks of decrepit wigs; robes, dresses, gowns, lacy brocades; thousands of old rusty keys, long warped out of shape; feebly glowing camping lanterns; scuffed trainers with strips of acid yellow; _bones of some poor dog;_ crinkled crisp packets; and all manner of gold or bright yellow things found under beds and inside cupboards.

“What...the...fuck..?”

There were some weird things inside the lair. But Jack had to say, a giant collection of gold things was one of the top ten. Why would Pitch even want it...? So he could roll around in dog bones and crisp packets and dead fireflies?

“ _YOU FOUND THE SHINIES!”_

Jack all but jumped out of his skin at the ungodly shriek as a silvery blur whipped past him. Dream bounded right into the centre of the pile and burrowed into it, transforming flying golden coins into tiny discs of pain. Jack yelped and did his best to avoid them, ducking and dodging with all his skill.

“The shinies?” he managed to shout, eventually, once the barrage had ended, and Dream's grinning, tentacled head poked out from underneath a rug and nodded enthusiastically. “Excuse me for asking this,” Jack said sarcastically, “but why the _hell_ did Pitch have a collection of...” He gestured around helplessly. “This is freakier than that dungeon,” he muttered.

Dream giggled. “Oh, I came here lots! To think dark arrow and riding the sun thoughts! I had a dark room when I was bright, too. I used to sit on the ocean floor until my sand fell apart!”

“DREAM!” North thundered from far away, and Dream, laughing, held a clawed finger to their lips and disappeared underneath the hoard once more. There was the thud of heavy footsteps as North rounded the corner, puffing, his cheeks red with exertion. “Ah, hello Jack.” He made a helpless gesture at the silver sand lining the passage way. “I tried to keep them from following.”

“ _Vellzast,_ North, what happened to your face?”

The left half of North's face was rugged with scars, deep rending clawmarks that narrowly missed his eye. North rubbed his cheek as if he had forgotten about the scarring and frowned. “Dream likes pain,” he said flatly, “especially if it's not theirs. I close my eyes for five minutes- bam, claws in face and mad laughter. It is not easy, keeping them at the Workshop!” He sounded frazzled, and looked it, Jack noticed, with a slight pang of guilt.

North's powerful shoulders bowed inwards with exhaustion, and his blue eyes were dull and tired. The bags underneath them were big enough to carry the whole world's presents without the sleigh, and his clothing was rumpled, as if he'd been wearing it for a few days. There was a coffee stain on his knee. Still, he brightened at the sight of Jack. “It has been long time, yes?” he said, knowing to keep his distance from the frigid boy.

Jack smiled a tight little smile. “I wouldn't know,” he said. Time was more or less meaningless in the darkness, a quality Jack rather liked.

“Jack...” North sighed and crossed his arms. “It has been almost a century since you left this place. It is not good for your health. Power needs to be used, remember?”

Jack's knuckles whitened on his staff. He breathed out slowly, caging the air deep within, loosing it bit by bit. _Almost a century._ He bit his lip, heart like a lodestone. Almost a century since he'd left this damn cave where it was all too easy to forget the time passing, almost a century since he'd last attended his duties as he was supposed to. _I am a terrible Guardian._

He supposed it was supposed to be all over, now. Mother Nature had long since disappeared down whatever hole she'd been in before the whole mess started, Mim was secure in his isolation, and Dream...well, was Dream. Kozmotis...was gone, at peace, where he belonged. Jack had his memories, all of them.

It didn't _feel_ over.

Dream was all rough edges and abrasiveness, dragging open the wounds of their ignorance towards Sandy and Pitch's suffering all those years. The Sandman had been a beloved spirit, and the Guardians were still breaking the truth to worried spirits unearthing themselves from their haunts, who had wondered at the transition of gold and black to silver. Dream was frequently the subject of discussion when the Guardians visited, each of them finding themselves exasperated and uncomfortable by the bright mad young thing. Dream was careless, and while they seemed to enjoy the Guardians' companionship well enough and periodically disappeared to bug Mother Nature, they held a thinly disguised scorn for the other spirits.

“ _They hated me,”_ was their reasoning, related by a frazzled Tooth somewhere around the twenty year mark. _“They hated me when I was dark, they worshipped me when I was light, and now they want to save me because I'm both. I will not be torn apart again.”_

Jack hadn't actually seen Dream all that often, only once or twice since he'd left the Warren, but the years had done little to change them. They wore a diaphanous, silky robe of black shadows that revealed more chubby silvery flesh than it really hid, held in with solid gold buckles and intricately carved bracelets around both wrists and ankles. A heavy gold collar was set around their neck, the faint glow of the golden sand stunning contrast to the inky shadow and the soft silver radiance of their skin. Still their great black eyes blinked with a deceptive innocence, and their sly grin curled with depravity and wickedness. They stole the attention of whatever room they were in like a whirlpool, so vibrantly compelling to the eye it was difficult to look away, although something jagged beneath the skin screamed _danger._

Currently, Dream was playing with the golden coins of Pitch's old hoard, laughing as they clinked together and shining them on their shadow robe, a completely pointless endeavour given the nature of the material. Jack looked at them and wondered what Sandy would think of what he and Pitch had become.

 _He w-wouldn't c-care,_ his Mim memories whispered, prodding a dim remembrance of the day Sandy had sworn that fateful oath forward. Indeed, looking back, the Sandy of the past was markedly similar to Dream in dress and character, and it was only after Mim's “re-arranging” of his mind had changed him that he had cast off his volatile, subtly entrancing quality.

 _He would be happy to be free,_ said Nightlight comfortingly, _but sad that people can't see he's still there, and miss him._

Jack sighed and leaned against his staff. “I suppose...it has been long since I last left this place,” he said tiredly, and North smiled at him, the twinkle lighting up his blue eyes warm and familiar. “And there is something left to do.”

“Jack...is all over now, there is nothing left to do,” said North in confusion, smile faltering slightly. But nonetheless by the way he looked at him, Jack knew that he had North's full support and trust in whatever he felt necessary to do. The knowledge made Jack feel safe, and he smiled without realising, muscles pulling slightly at the now-unfamiliar action.

“We are plan-making?” Dream asked, extending a tendril of hair to poke Jack's shoulder, a not so subtle request to be included.

“Did anyone ever recover Sanderson's body, from underneath the wreckage of the star?” _Maybe it's time to say goodbye._

* * *

To say the Guardians were slightly wary around Jack was an understatement. For years, the only contact they'd had with him outside sporadic visits in the gloomy darkness of Pitch's former lair had been the raging blizzards he would send up, once or twice deliberately on Easter just to mess with Bunny.

The uncontrolled, unknown thing he'd been when they'd first landed on Earth after visiting the Moon was still fresh in North and Tooth's memories, and Bunny had demanded a full account of what had happened. The Pooka wasn't certain how to act around Jack, who didn't quite seem certain how to be Jack anymore either. They'd got into the habit of relying on banter and friendly insults instead of any in depth conversation, and perhaps that was why Jack found Bunny perversely easier to deal with rather than Tooth or North.

Jack led the Guardians to the spot where Sandy's body still lay, thousands of years after he had crashed. The terrain had changed after all those years, but Jack's memories as Mim still proved useful in uncovering the right part of the island, most of which had sunk beneath the waves, although the tide was unusually, unnaturally low, allowing them to dig and move around on the spit of land without fear or hindrance.

Jack caught Tooth, surprisingly, wearing the armour North had made for her, though her swords were not at her sides, murmuring a soft thank you to the waves, which almost seemed to rear up and splash her feathers on purpose. Tooth only rolled her eyes.

“Hello Jack,” she said, fluttering forward to hug him. Jack experienced a fleeting moment of Mim-panic before remembering how to hug back and sheepishly smiling at her. She grinned back at him.

“Hey Tooth,” said Jack.

“It's good to see you out and about again!” she said brightly, her rose eyes glittering in the light of the sun. She prised open his jaw, ignoring his muffled complaint, to check his teeth. “Ooh, Jack, they're still perfect,” she sighed. “I was afraid they were going to turn out like Pitch's, staying in that lair...”

“Tooth, would I do that to you?” Jack teased, and Tooth blushed, swiping back her crest with one hand.

Clouds began to cover the sun, but neither Tooth nor Jack took any notice. The wind picked up, carrying the bitter chill of the Arctic, impossibly, in the center of the tropics.

“Maybe,” she said. “I'm just so glad you're out!” She squeezed him tightly again, ignoring Jack's 'oof' as she forced the air out of his lungs.

“Can't...breathe...” Jack wheezed.

Rain swelled threateningly until the sky was almost bruised purple, but still went unnoticed. The wind whistled in a rather put out manner.

Tooth released him with a soft laugh.

“I'm so glad you're not petty enough to get upset over my close friendships with other people even after a very long separation, Jack,” she said kindly, and nonplussed, Jack blinked at her.

“Thanks?”

Mysteriously, the sky began to brighten again, the wind howling as if whistling innocently. Tooth spread her wings, tilting her face up to the sun with a small smile, her wings fluttering in the breeze. “It's a beautiful day, Jack,” she murmured. “A good time to find Sandy.”

“We shoulda done this earlier,” said Bunny, startling them both, who had not noticed him approaching. He nodded gruffly at them. His ears were lowered, and his eyes uncharacteristically solemn. The whiteish, ugly scar of Death's handprint on his shoulder had been covered with a leather epaulette; details of eggs and arrow shapes reflecting his tattoos had been worked into the leather.

North was directing the yetis behind him, waving his arms out quite a bit and yelling in Russian. Tooth giggled at the sight of him, and Jack and Bunny shared an exasperated look before going over to intervene.

Sandy's body was quite deeply buried, but Dream was surprisingly helpful, able to shift large quantities with perfect ease. When Tooth had remarked on it, they gave her an insulted look.

“Do you honestly think I forgot not only where half my soul was harboured for _centuries_ but also how to move my _own sand?”_

With Dream's help and the combined powers of the Guardians, it did not take long. They stopped digging with shovels when North's hit the ancient screen of the wrecked star with a metallic _clunk,_ for fear of damaging the body. Dream had assured them that the remnant magic in the sand had kept it well-preserved, eighty odd years was nothing.

Nonetheless, the Guardians moved carefully in hollowing out the sheltered space underneath the screen, until a small, huddled lump became visible. It was Bunny who stepped down into the depression and carefully lifted the ancient star pilot from his deathbed, but it was the gentle, caressing wind that tenderly blew away the sand clinging to the little form, revealing Captain Sanderson Mansnoozie's features for the first time in thousands of years.

The Guardians looked down at the little body, so tiny it looked as if it could have belonged to a ten year old child. There were marked differences between Mansnoozie and his eventual dreamsand avatar, and by the time the Guardians compared him against Dream there was almost nothing left of the original features.

The star, bereft of his glow, was ashen grey in colour, as if all life had simply been drained from the hue of his skin. He wore a faded blue jumpsuit, ragged and still stained with darkness in some places, but three golden cords still vibrant on his shoulder. Huddled as he was, he looked like a creature in miniature, impossibly fragile, with a long mane of tangled, knotty hair cascading around the sunken hollows of eyes and the thin frame. Around Mansnoozie's wrist was a knotted bracelet of hair, the very faintest gleam of red split with gold.

“ _Chandra and Sandy,”_ Jack murmured, not daring to touch the ancient, brittle bracelet for fear it would break on his icy touch.

“He is...so tiny,” whispered North, looking disbelieving.

“Things always look smaller when they are dead,” said Bunny, but his expression said he agreed with North.

“Jack...” said Tooth, and had to clear her throat to stop the hitch in her voice. “What...what did he look like, before he died?”

Jack swallowed, wet his lips. He raked his hand through his hair and tugged his hoodie over his head. “He...he looked a lot like the others...his glow was very bright...” _Or at least it was, until Chandra died._ “He always...smiled...” _Until each of his kind died, one by one..._ “...even at... at the end, he kept fighting...he was very brave.” At least the last part of that sentence wasn't a lie.

It seemed to be what the Guardians needed to hear, though, because their expressions, while not brightening, did seem to lessen in severity.

Dream, silent, met Jack's gaze with their inky black orbs, and held one clawed finger to their soft lips. They shook their head slowly, eyes glittering, and Jack knew that Dream knew he was lying. Jack wondered if they remembered Mansnoozie or Kozmotis. Perhaps that was too far back.

Dream wandered off, apparently uninterested in the body, to torment some over-curious fish. Tooth turned to watch them go.

“We should burn him,” said Jack. “That's what they did in the Golden Age, wasn't it?” he glanced at Bunny, who shrugged – with only one shoulder, since his other was stiff.

“I don't know that much about what the stars did, Jack. I don't think they left bodies behind that often, but I reckon burning would do it.”

“Here?” asked North, and the other Guardians nodded.

“It should be for Pitch, too,” said Bunny, unexpectedly. When the others looked at him, the Pooka fidgeted. “Look, I hated the bloke just as much as you all did, but...he died too. And considering all the stuff we learned about, well, you know,” he gestured vaguely about, “spirits, and alignment not being a bad thing...we did him a disservice. He was a _dick,_ but maybe I'm going crazy...” He trailed off, having evidently reached his limit of kindness for the day.

North grinned at him. “Is splendid idea!” he boomed, “We have joint service, yes? For both of them. And Sandy burned as Pitch was.”

* * *

The joint funeral was widely attended. Some of them genuinely came to mourn the “passing” of one of the most ancient and beloved spirits the earth had ever seen, some of them came for Pitch, a mere handful of surly, dark creatures, remote and unapproachable. One spirit, female, clad in a dark indigo dress with a cloud of hair that rivalled Mother Nature's, even wept at the sight of the second pyre.

Most of them, however, came to gawk at Dream. The Guardians made an effort to be friendly to these spirits, trying to set an example for Dream, who, with an air of great patience, copied them.

The fires roared high, and as they did a spirit lurched from the tangled shadows, a tall beast of a creature, with great antlers atop his head and a small boy tripping after him, a lantern held in one hand and brilliant, confused white eyes that stared blindly out at the gathering. Hopelessness, as Bunny identified him immediately, approached Dream with a cruel look in their glittering white eyes.

“So you’re what’s left of Pitch, then, are you?” Hopelessness’ voice was deep and rich as he looked over Dream, stubbornly tilting their head back to meet Hopelessness’s eyes with their own inky black ones. “I thought you would be…well…more.”

“Sorry to disappoint,” said Dream, an absence of cheer in their grin.

“I knew Pitch well, you see,” sneered Hopelessness, nastily.

“I remember,” said Dream tightly.

Hopelessness appeared to be about to say more, but before he could a soft voice spoke from the winds, and a tall figure coalesced from a gathering of fluttering butterflies. “Dream. Pleasant to see _you._ If you wouldn't mind,” the last directed at Hopelessness, who bowed gracefully away. Mother Nature dipped her head stiffly at Dream and walked away, her arms folded tightly across her stomach as if she was in grievous pain.

She stopped before the flickering flames of Sandy's pyre, staring down into white inferno. The spirits she passed hushed, all but for one, tall and robed, with a grinning skull face an a scythe. Death called out a cheery salutation, and didn't seem to mind when she ignored him completely. He drifted over to chat with Dream, who was the only spirit who didn't quail from him in the slightest.

Jack watched all of this, a silent observer. He stood on a rise overlooking the two pyres, resting against his staff as the cool winds stroked his icy hair as a tender apology for the many times it had been forced to forsake him for its primary mistress. He felt better than he had in many years, perhaps because he'd spent all the previous day working on bringing thick, heavy snows everywhere, writing his name in the frost, spurring on one or two snowball fights and brightening a few dark bedrooms. Perhaps it was because he'd said goodbye, or perhaps it was because everything was finally over. The mess that had started long before Jack had fell, his lance plunged into Pitch's cold heart, into a lake for a few thousand years, but had been up to him to continue and finish.

He sighed as he looked at the painfully isolated figure of Mother Nature. He felt sorry for her. He had the Guardians, visiting him and making certain he took care of himself, but Seraphina had had no one but Tooth, until she had driven even her away, many years before Jack had even opened his eyes to Earth.

He had been unfair to her. The realisation was bitter and unwelcome, although Jack recognised it to be true. He winced to remember the accusations he had shot at her in the wake of Kozmotis' death, of not caring for her own father. Seraphina was cold, yes, but Jack had been better placed than most to understand the remote and hurting woman, and all he had done was push her aside and pretend that she had no understanding of his grief.

He owed her an apology. Quite a large part of Jack feared Seraphina, knowing that her mental state was tied to the volatility of the earth itself, far more a puppet of it than it was hers, a perfect symbiosis. But he also knew, call it life experience from having three different lives (four, if he counted his fake memories as Jack Overland) that having a powerful goddess spirit rightly pissed at him was not conducive to a healthy or long life.

It was with this reasoning that Jack cautiously descended, riding the winds as if he had been born on them, to stand beside her. She made no acknowledgement of his presence, staring deeply into the flames as if hypnotised. He remained quiet, words deserting him. Eventually, the silence grew from awkward into comfortable, and the two nature spirits stood side by side, watching the last star burn in peace.

At last, Seraphina spoke. “I never saw his face.” Her voice was toneless. “Not...not while he lived, anyway.”

Jack said nothing.

“When...” She trailed off, cleared her throat, tried again. “When the Sandman first rose...I was so happy.” Her nails were digging into her arms, Jack noted, so hard that it was splitting the vines of her dress. “I thought...”

Another long pause. “Sandman didn't remember you,” said Jack quietly.

“Nor did my own father,” Seraphina said quickly, as if she had to force the words out. She bowed her head, her hair covering her face. “I was seventeen...the only friend I had was Death.”

 _Why is she telling me this?_ She was clearly uncomfortable, the words sounded stilted, awkward, as if Seraphina were trying them for the first time.

“When Toothiana...she taught me many things. How to...interact. How to care. But... I never was any good at letting go.” She made a sound that might have been a despairing laugh but came out all wrong. “I am old, Jack Frost. So very old. I feel time dragging on my bones, and each passing season brings me further away from caring. I would kill every last insect on this rock, if I could simply muster the energy, the will to bother. When Toothiana left, it was easier to simply...not care.”

Jack scuffed his foot against the sand and thought about how much easier the past would have been, if every creature could simply blanket their emotions and turn them away when they were inconvenient.

“At the Warren...”

Jack tensed.

“...At the Warren...it was easier to not care then, too.”

There was such a long silence following that statement that Jack almost thought the conversation was over. He was about to say something brief, awkward, a quick apology and leave, but before he could Seraphina said, so very softly, “I was afraid...and I was a fool. Jack...I am sorry, for the part I played in this mess.”

“If...if it is at all reassuring,” said Jack contemplatively, “in the grand scheme of things, you and I fucked up equally.”

That statement wrung a surprised laugh from Seraphina, and she looked at him, her sage eyes shifting green and blue like the ocean around them. “What did you do? If I hadn't made that oath- or buried Sandy, or been so preoccupied with finding my father, or so possessive of Sandy's memory-”

“And if I had listened a little better in Antarctica, or when I was trapped in Pitch's heart, or when we found out what he used to be when I was still Nightlight, if I had done more, if I had tried harder, worked more, Kozmotis might be walking among us in his own body, and Sandy could have gone to rest so much sooner. We can repeat 'what-ifs' all we like, but the past is the past.” Jack interrupted firmly. He hesitated again.

“For what it is worth...I am sorry for the things I said in the Warren. About, well.”

Seraphina smiled at him fondly and ruffled his hair. “You're young yet, Jack. Save your regrets for when you're as creaky as me.”

“You know that technically, I am _older_ than you, don't you?” It was true, Nightlight had been born centuries before Seraphina had even been a twinkle in the eye of her grandfather.

Seraphina waved a hand dismissively. “Tell me you aren't older when you've had as many children as I have. Nothing ages you faster, Jack. Nothing.”

“Speaking of,” said Jack. “When are you going to let Tooth apologise to you?”

With a sniff, Seraphina drew herself up proudly. “I _said_ I wasn't going to take her back, I can't just break my word.”

“Because of your pride? That's why you haven't forgiven her? And I didn't say you should take her back, that's none of my business.”

Seraphina looked caught-out. “All the same,” she muttered.

“Don't you think you're being slightly ridiculous?” asked Jack, doing his best not to shrink back from the fierce glare she sent him. “I mean, you just admitted that you messed up to me, and I'm some...lowly spirit. Isn't Tooth more important?”

“True...but if I go back on my word she won't respect me anymore,” Seraphina spat through gritted teeth.

Jack looked at her in amazement. Mother Nature had to be the _proudest_ creature he had ever met. And he had met many, many people. “I disagree. I think she'd respect you more for recognising when to give in and not hold onto the past.”

Seraphina went silent for a moment, and then said, turning her face away from him, “You overstep your bounds, frost sprite. Away with you before I fry you.”

Jack grinned. “Yes Mother,” he said cheekily, and shot into the air before she could make good on her threat.

He circled the island, once, twice, smiling when he saw Dream making sandcastles with North, who was adding magic drawbridges and dragons to curl around the towers, Bunny involved in a lively debate about horticulture with Hopelessness, but he full-out grinned when he saw Tooth approach Mother Nature, the defeated slump of her body language making it clear that she expected to be rebuffed. Her surprise when whatever Seraphina said wasn't an outright dismissal but, perhaps, an invitation was almost comical to watch – every one of her feathers stood on end for an instant and her wings flared. She almost tripped over herself in her eagerness to sit beside Seraphina, who pulled what looked like a beetle out of her hair to show Tooth.

Jack frowned. Well, okay, whatever worked for them.

He looked up, and up, all the way up at the Moon where he knew Manny would be watching through his telescope, staring back at Jack surfing on clouds. Jack waved at him, and shouted, “I still think you're a dick, you know.”

He all but fell out of the sky in surprise when a familiar voice spoke dryly into his ear, _Thanks, Jack._

“What?! How come you talk to me now?!” Jack yelled, feeling cheated.

 _Things have somewhat changed since you were first pulled out of that pond, Jack, I don't know if you noticed,_ Mim said sarcastically.

“Since when did you get brave? And what happened to the stutter?”

An air of great impatience emanated from the moonbeam. _Jack, you honestly watched my memories and still didn't figure out I use_ mental _communication when I speak through the moonbeams?_

“Well, yeah, but I didn't really get most of what you were thinking. It doesn't make sense to me.”

_You're an idiot, Jack._

“Oh yeah? Call me an idiot when I next murder my best friends and as soon as you learn how to set off a perfect blizzard, okay?”

_...Touché._

"Are you ever going to shut up now?"

_No._

"Stars help me..."


	40. Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is a really shitty ending guys, I'm sorry. But thanks for reading this far.

“...we've got a heavy snow advisory for today's Sunday, continuing throughout the day,” the news reporter was saying, a frown on his face and the reporter beside him nodding periodically along with his words.

“Turn that tripe off!” the old man shouted, waving one withered hand violently at the screen. He was the typical elderly gent, white-haired and liver-spotted, secure in his chair, but his eyes were piercing and his mind clearly alert.

His granddaughter, a young, lithe girl of twenty, with mousey brown hair tied back in a neat braid and her grandfather's warm brown eyes, sighed and did as he bid her, rolling her eyes. She slid her phone into her pocket and smiled at her irascible grandfather, who had sagged back into his pillows, still bright brown eyes turning wistfully to the window, where damp flakes of snow were already kissing the panes.

“Do you want anything, Pa?” she asked, one hand fingering the shape of her phone in her pocket. She wanted to go out and join the parade that wound its way to the village square, her grandfather knew. He smiled at her tiredly.

“Helen dear, could you help your old grandfather to the window chair?”

“Sure, Pa,” said Helen, and supported his arm as he stood on shaky old legs and hobbled to the window chair. Once he was settled, closing his eyes with weariness, she fussed over his coverings, adjusting a heated blanket over his thin knees.

“When I was a boy, it never used to snow on this day,” he told her, and she smiled slightly absently at him, having heard this story so many times it was engraved in the twilight of her memories. Helen had never experienced a Remembrance Day where it did not snow.

“Yes, Pa,” said Helen. “I'm going out now, okay? Call me if you need anything, yeah? I'll be with Josh.”

Her grandfather sniffed. “I don't like that boy for you, Helen. He wears his trousers around his ankles.”

“Oh my god, Pa, he's _my_ boyfriend, you don't need to like him, and it's _fashion_.”

“It looks silly.”

“ _You_ look silly,” was Helen's parting response as she walked into the hallway, picking up her coat.

“Don't forget your hat!” shouted her grandfather to her retreating back, and with a huff Helen grabbed it off the hook.

“Don't want Jack Frost nipping at my nose,” she teased over her shoulder. Then the door closed and the old man was alone.

He sighed, watching her disappear into the world of swirling white flakes, shoulders hunched and hands shoved into her pockets. The sky was rapidly turning grey, and he leaned his head against a cushion with a wistful sigh, remembering icy laughter and a boy that danced on the wind like he was born to it. He'd been so young, sometimes he wondered if he'd imagined that year. Sometimes he wished he had.

It would have been kinder. But even though eighty years had passed since he had last seen the frost boy, he could never scrub the memory of their parting from his mind. The accusations, the ghost who had looked like a man he had helped kill. He'd gone through lots of therapy in his younger years, trying to rid himself of the haunting remembrance, a soldier broken and weary, the faded remnant of a man, a spirit lethal, dark and beautiful.

“The first week of November really is too early for blizzards, Jack,” the old man murmured in a hoarse, time-snatched voice. He closed his eyes, preparing to slip into some washed out dream. Perhaps the Dreamlord would be kind to him today, on this day for remembering the horrors of the past. He doubted it. Sleep was never kind.

The click of the door opening startled him, and at first the old man assumed it was Helen returning, but she didn't call out as they were accustomed to, and though his hearing was going, he swore he couldn't hear the click of her shoes on the floor.

Instead there was the heavy tread of armour clanking together and the thud of a staff. An icy wind howled into the small house, and the old man shivered into his blankets, wishing he was closer to the fire. Trepidation hunched in his belly. Who could it be? No human nowadays walked in armour, but the alternative was impossible, why, he hadn't seen any of _them_ in years-!

The figure, when he rounded the corner, stopped the old man in his tracks.

The years had changed them both, but still, tears of gladness welled in his eyes as he recognised his impromptu visitor, and he raised a frail hand, reaching hopelessly to verify the illusion.

“Hey, Jamie,” said Jack Frost.

“ _Jack!”_

Jack laughed a little, ran his hand through his snowy hair awkwardly. There was a kind of dismay in his bright, bright blue eyes, Jamie had forgotten the true shade of them, purer than ice and deeper than glaciers, though there were new lines framing them and Jamie swore that Jack had never, really, well, _glowed_ as much as he did now.

Not to mention the armour, sleek like a chitinous exoskeleton welded to his pale flesh, with barbed spikes and kissed with swirling patterns of jagged black ice like teeth, and the staff he carried, now the shepherd's crook hung with dagger sharp icicles and the wood was encased in such an impenetrable shield of ice that it would be impossible to break. He looked like he'd been through a war, was still battling one, although his smile was present his eyes were grave.

Jack had grown up, but Jamie had just grown old.

“Jack, Jack,” said Jamie, drinking in the sight of him, “Jack, you're _wearing shoes!”_

Jack burst out laughing, and his skin lit up as he did so, until he glowed just as brightly as any moon. Despite his wonder and bemusement, Jamie found himself laughing too, the sheer joy radiating from Jack was impossible to resist.

“Yeah,” said Jack, “I...I, er, got into the habit of it...”

“I never thought I'd live to see the day when Jack Frost wore shoes,” said Jamie wonderingly, “I'd never thought I'd see you again,” he added.

Jack sobered again. “Jamie...” He looked in horror at his first believer's withered face, but at least his eyes were still as bright as ever. Jack might have wept if Jamie's brown eyes, the first eyes that had ever seen him, had been blind. It would've had a miserly sort of justice to it, he supposed.

Jack had forgotten that Jamie was _mortal._ He'd forgotten that while the spirit world stood still, poised on the brink of time, the mortal world rushed onwards at a breakneck pace to the brink of death and poised there, teetering, fleeting, impossible. _Eighty years._ Guilt crept and crawled inside of him. _Eighty years,_ he'd left Jamie all alone, hadn't gone out to interact with him once.

The hope and wonder in Jamie's old, tired, _dying_ eyes was like ten thousand arrows in the back, and Jack had never felt more of a monster. _I was so selfish._

“I'm sorry,” was all he could say, but they both knew it was inadequate. “A lot of things happened...I got...held up.”

“By the Grey Soldier, right?” said Jamie eagerly, suddenly eight again and younger than he'd been in years. “And Pitch? He died?” It no longer had such an effect, but still something seemed to crack in Jamie's eyes as he said it, and Jack's heart squeezed tightly. “How did you find me?” He added, “We moved.”

He'd...completely forgotten that Jamie had run away that day in the park on Remembrance Day believing that he, Jamie Bennett, had partly caused the death of Pitch Black.

“Er,” said Jack, “Sort of. It's a long story. Oh! And I had help from a...friend.” He gestured vaguely towards the snowy world outside. “Um. They can find anyone if they're asleep, and you were, so...”

“Can I meet them? Is it a spirit?”

“Ah, no, I don't think it would be a good idea,” said Jack, awkwardly, “They've managed to – supposedly accidentally – kill every awake mortal that comes into contact with them so far...I'd rather not risk it.”

“Oh,” said Jamie, “I...er, think I can give it a miss, then. Wouldn't want to cheat Death, eh?” He winked at Jack, who just looked uncomfortable, so kindly Jamie continued, “What's this new friend like?”

“ _Vellzast,_ Jamie, you _would not_ believe me if I told you. It's Sandy and Pitch's...power-child? I don't know, but they're crazy, control everyone's unconscious minds, and have snake-hair.”

“Their _child?”_ Jamie repeated, stunned. “Sandy and _Pitch?”_ It had to be a joke. The spirit world had changed, _greatly,_ since Jamie had last had a window to it...

“Long, long story, like, _hundreds of years old_ sort of story.”

Jamie gave him an odd, wistful sort of smile. “I suppose I don't have that much time left, but you better tell me anyway.”

“I have nowhere to start,” said Jack, helplessly, because how could he begin with the impossible layer of threads that had contributed to the web of the present? Did he begin with the Tsarina's betrayal? Her love for Archaline? Sandy's fall? Pitch's death? Kozmotis' rising? Mother Nature's loneliness, or her oath? Jack's past as Nightlight? Mim's story?

“In the middle,” said Jamie unexpectedly, “since if you were to explain the beginning of _every_ story, we'd still be here come Death's arrival at my door.”

Jack smiled. “I guess I can start somewhere around the middle,” he said. He cleared his throat, and settled cross-legged in front of Jamie, who leaned towards him as if they were boys again, sharing whispered stories and hopes across the barriers of time and death. But Jamie wasn't any human, he was _Jack's first believer,_ and his most important friend.

And so Jack settled himself, and began; _“The body of Pitch Black did not remember it had once been a man...”_

 


End file.
